


Strays And Outcasts

by Sachia



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual Moira O'Deorain, Blackwatch family, Covert Ops Division, F/M, Gabe collects people like stray cats, Genetic Disorders & Abnormalities, Genetic Engineering, I'm Sorry, Like Socially Awkward Mad Scientist Kind Of Fluff, Moral Ambiguity, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Fall of Overwatch, Slow Burn, Soldier Enhancement Program Gone Wrong, There will still be some fluff, like really slow burn, please still read it, so no smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2019-06-21 08:25:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15553644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sachia/pseuds/Sachia
Summary: Gabriel Reyes has always been the kind of man who likes to take all responsibility on his own shoulders, but now he must face it that there are problems he cannot solve alone.Dr. Moira O’Deorain takes pride in her work, even when the whole world have turned their back on her. This job offer seems to be the best she can get, still she has a feeling there is something her employer is not telling her about the real reason of her employment.Jesse McCree has sworn never to forget where he came from and what he has done. He is trying his best not to waste the new chance he has been given.Genji Shimada has been betrayed by his own blood. He wants nothing but revenge.(Or the story, where Gabe is in deep shit, and only Moira can save his sorry ass. Yeah, I suck at descriptions.)





	1. Chapter 1 part 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, um, hi, everyone!  
> This is the fic I've been working on this year's Camp NaNoWriMo. The usual chapters are about 10 A/4 pages long, but I'm dividing them to smaller chapters, since I have to translate them to English. (Which is not my native tongue, so any kind of grammar correction is welcome!) So far there is 7 and a half chapters done, so there'll be frequent updates for a while.  
> Also, I'd like to hear any opinion you form after reading this. :)  
> Chapter 1 Part 1 is set twelve years in the path, in 2053, but the next chapters will be set in the years between 2065-2070.

**2053, twelve years ago.**

A lot of things seem to be a great idea, when one has just found their freshly won independence. That seventeen-year-old boy, for example, had found military service an excellent idea. It had been a profession that gave a stable basis for his adult life, but of course, barely out of childhood, Gabriel Reyes hadn’t really keep his future subsistence in mind. The chance to be someone, to step out of the shadow cast upon him by society had attracted him much more.

That had been his own idea. For everything else, he liked to blame Morrison.

Jack, somehow, had always been able to find his way with people. He possessed that natural aura that made him able to wake trust and admiration in anyone who looked at him. He attracted people as a lamp left alight attracted the nocturnal insects.

Because of this exact reason, it didn’t strike Gabriel as a surprise, when on the official list of the freshly elected officials he found his friend’s name instead of his own next to the title ‘strike commander’. He had been talking with Director Petras about the upcoming structural changes in Overwatch. The Omnic Crisis was over, the weapons gradually fell silent all over the world, now came an era of consolidation. This meant that instead of the hard-handed maintenance of order, their job from now on would be keeping the peace and morale, and for this job, they needed leaders representing the right values.

Reyes knew it very well that Morrison was a thousand times more fit to that position than him. He never liked talking to the representatives of media, posing for posters and shaking hands with the various high-ranked delegates of various countries. He was the kind of soldier who took care of matters rather than talking about doing so. Silently, fast, permanently.

Times and objectives change, he had to accept it.

His phone’s ringing yanked him out of his thoughts, back to reality. The recent message implied that Jack had read the published list of names too, since he proposed a meeting combined with dinner. Glancing at the small numbers glowing in the corner of the screen, Gabriel realized it was well past noon. Studying the list, he had been so absorbed in his work, that he entirely forgot about time. He hadn’t had the appetite lately that he used to have, anyway. Hadn’t Jack sent a message, he probably would have missed the upcoming meal entirely.

His friend was waiting for him in the diner, at their usual table. He greeted the arriving Gabriel with a smile, but there was some kind of tension hiding in his eyes. Was he afraid of something?

“You look drawn-out.”

“ Good day to you too, Morrison “ Reyes shook the hand extended towards him. His lips formed a smile.  “Forgive me, it’s Commander Morrison now, right? Congratulations!"

Jack looked like he felt a lot less comfortable by the mentioning of his new position, at least  that’s what the fleeting twitch of his face muscles implied. His predecessor knew this would be a great source of amusement for him in the next few weeks.

“I’m sorry you lost your place because of me.” The man’s smile seemed a bit wry.

Reyes raised his eyes to the ceiling.

“Don’t be kidding, Jack, do you know how much of a relief it is, that I’m not supposed to pretend I’m the best friend of every head of government anymore?”

Morrison’s posture loosened a bit, as he accepted the words with a nod. Probably he had reached the same conclusion as his friend long ago, but his conscience didn’t let him accept it openly.

“And what’s your opinion about your new position?”

Gabriel shrugged, but deep inside he was grateful for the change of subject. He had always felt uncomfortable in situations like this.

“You mean Blackwatch? Petras didn’t go in details, but as much as I know about it so far, it sounds like the job for me. Actually I’ll be doing the same as before, under a different name and with much less advertisement.”

Morrison nodded, but before he could answer, the huge shadow cast on their table broke his line of thought.

“Commanders! Can we join you?” The cheerful, almost playful voice belonged to Ana Amari, who stopped at their table, accompanied by a large, blonde man.

“Ana, Reinhardt” nodded Gabriel. “Come, sit down!”

As the captain and the crusader took their seats, the way Wilhelm’s arm accidentally, due to his size, brushed against the woman’s shoulder didn’t go unnoticed, but it didn’t seem like any of them was bothered by it. True, during the years of serving together, those two became quite close friends, and after the officially declared peace, the tone of their relationship slightly but noticeably took a new direction. Jack and Gabriel were polite enough not to be nosy, but they did take notice of the change. Over the last years, Ana had become like a sister for them, so naturally they cared for her, but didn’t forget she was a grown woman after all, who could decide about her own future. And Reinhardt wasn’t a man they had to worry about.

“Gabe, I’m sorry to say, but you look tuckered out” Amari shared her opinion between two bites. “Is everything alright?”

The man shrugged.

“I’ve been burning the candle at both ends lately. You know, some of us get more out of the conversion than smiling for photos.” The growled answer would have sounded hostile for anyone else, but the sniper had known him long enough not to be misguided by the grim surface.

She didn’t seem convinced, but she knew better than to put her doubts into words. She muttered something under her breath, something about the connection between chronic stress and cardiovascular diseases, but it seemed she was leaving it at that.

The suddenly somber atmosphere was broken by Reinhardt who spoke up, as usual, much louder than necessary.

“So Blackwatch it is, right?”

 


	2. Chapter 1 Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is some Moira (kind of), and Gabe finds hope somewhere he didn't expect to.

**Present day, 2065.**

All the years spent with research, the enormous amount of tests and documentation, which finally seemed to bear fruit, now fell to pieces before her eyes, like tissue samples when she’d made a serious mistake in the early stages of an experiment.

Moira had a strong belief that every mistake hides an opportunity inside. She led her life by this philosophy. Always and at any cost, she pursued perfection, and if nature put obstacles in her way, she did her best to use them as a stepping stone in her slow but unstoppable rising.

People should have been grateful, especially in these time, when not so long ago they had had to face an opponent that highly exceeded them in both physical and mental skills. She gave them an opportunity, so they could finally step forward in the eternal fight for survival. A chance to correct their flaws.

Of course, what did it count? They were only human. And human beings had always been held back from real progress by numerous invisible chains: moral constraints, conscience, law, fear. They thought these granted their safety, and comfortable in their situation they didn’t recognize the shackles made by themselves.

The fools.

Moira had regretted her thoughtlessness a thousand times. As anybody in her field, she aspired to recognition. She wanted to share the opportunities uncovered with humanity, and as she should have expected, in their gratitude they spit her in the face.

There were reasons they could not reproduce her breakthrough. Most of her colleagues lacked the bravery and the vocation needed. She wasn’t afraid to even risk her own health if it meant she could take another step towards success, the scars marking her right hand proved it eloquently.

But people were cowards; that is how she, the worldwide recognized scientist, instructor and honorary freeman of several universities, became an outcast, within the span of days. Fear had done its work, her sources waned minute by minute, her connections denied her access to materials they used to give out to her willingly. No-one wanted to be mentioned on the same page with the infamous Dr.O’Deorain.

She was standing there, thirty-seven years old, when most people’s scientific career was just getting started, and she had to bury her own.

Her lodging and tools had been taken back by her now former employer, cutting her irrevocably from the opportunities. Though she found an overpriced apartment in the downtown of Dublin where she could  pull up for a short time, but she knew she couldn’t stay there long. By her estimations, if she paid attention to her spending, she could hold out on her reserves for as much as a year, but she didn’t want to risk it. She didn’t see much chance for any scientific association to take her back into their graces, and she knew it was impossible for her to get a chance to publish anything. People were pointing fingers at her on the street, whispered behind her back if she even went down to the local shop for a loaf of bread. She couldn’t really find odd jobs either. In the moment they found out who they were facing they all stepped back. They looked at her with an almost superstitious fear, as if she were a witch who could turn them into a monster with a look of her eye.

She would have needed a bit more than one look, but Moira didn’t hurry to enlighten them about it.

Every mistake hides an opportunity inside – in the last few weeks this had become her personal mantra, an illusion waning by the hour, that gave her strength to get up in the morning and try again.

Whatever opportunity her current situation was hiding, she had less and less faith to ever find it.

***

“Hey, commander, have you read the news?”

Reyes, not even glancing there, caught the absently rolled-up paper thrown at him by Jesse. Some of his younger colleagues smiled at this way of his of getting information in this digital world, but it seemed like McCree didn’t share their opinion. One of the small reasons he liked the young man.

As he glanced down at the issue’s cover in his hands, he had to realize that the similarities had stopped at that point, at least concerning their opinion on news sources that could be taken seriously. On the front page, among various claptrap titles posed a Z-category actress whose face was familiar to him, but he couldn’t recall the name. He had probably seen her in a low-budget western adaptation McCree always chose when it was his turn to pick something for the weekly  team-building activity, or what they were called officially.

“Sure I haven’t read _these_ news” he looked up, and his face probably told a lot about his opinion, because the young man shook his ever-disheveled head.

“Don’t let the looks cheat you, boss! Check out the last article!” he gestured slightly imperatively.

Gabriel, still skeptical, turned the page to the end of the issue, where he found a writing, which was indeed different than the magazine’s general spirit. First he noticed that the page lacked usual pictures of celebrity people who surely wouldn’t have worn on the streets the clothes they had put on for the photo shooting. The bottom half of the page was entirely occupied by an advertisement popularizing the food delivery service of a ramen restaurant, and the article itself wasn’t more than a column side by side with a picture that in no way reflected the style expected from the magazine. On the photo a tall figure could be seen, with a paper looking like a diploma in their hand, shaking hands with a shorter, balding man. By the clothing of the people featured and the document, the photo had probably been taken at a graduation ceremony. He couldn’t quite determine the gender of the freshly graduated student, as, due to the picture’s relatively bad quality, their facial features weren’t clear.

Since Jesse was still looking at him expectantly, he quickly skimmed through the article. Irish professor, scandal, unethical genetic experiments.

_Unethical genetic experiments._

He took a deep breath to calm his suddenly fast heartbeat as much as possible, then buckled down to reading again, this time more carefully.

By the time he was done, he could hear the blood drumming in his ears, as for the first time in years a sprout of faint hope appeared before his mind’s eye.

“Hey, boss, you okay?” Jesse’s concerned voice yanked him back to the ground of reality, and he nodded hastily, gulping to banish the dryness of his throat.

“Why did you show this to me, kid?”

The boy shrugged, eyeing him misgivingly.

“I don’t know, just for the hell of it, I guess. Sounds a bit like a mad scientist version of Angela, don’t ya reckon?”

The commander didn’t respond, he was too much occupied with searching in his mobile browser for more information on the disgraced doctor.

Moira O’Deorain. So it was a she, though he really couldn’t have told by the picture.

When he realized he was waiting for the reaction to his idea in vain, Jesse leaned over his shoulder curiously.

“Now, Boss, I didn’t know you’re interested in weird, mad scientists.”

Reyes didn’t pay attention to his employee’s teasing, and pressed the ‘send’ button. If everything went well, the woman would soon read the standard document that told Overwatch was interested in his work, and which called upon her to contact the organization as soon as possible.

And about what Jack was going to say about this all?

He would still have time to care about that _after_ Dr.O’Deorain responded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Any comments, constructive criticism or grammar correction is welcome. :)


	3. Chapter 2 Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Moira looks for a job, Gabe's not getting an answer and Jesse has an idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So right now I'm on top of a mountain, holding my phone in weird positions to find service and publish this chapter.  
> #stillworthit  
> Also forgive me, I made a mistake and wrote an enormous part of this chapter in past perfect. Feel free to point out my mistakes.

Moira could still hear the sound of wind chimes moved by the door she’d just shut behind herself. Another unsuccessful audition, the third that day, although it was barely past noon. It seemed like the good working class did not want the help offered to them, which she found somehow ironic, since the newspapers were full of articles complaining about the lack of workforce. Surely, they were looking for shop assistants, washer-ups, road sweepers and people for a million different positions all across the city. The only problem was that none of the shop owners or minor entrepreneurs wanted her person for the job. Some of them told her politely, that they would call her in a few days about their decision, others sent her on her way with various excuses, and there were people who didn’t even try to hide their reasons.tu  
Of course, in the past month the newspapers had been full of her face, and even though the wind of the scandal was slowly dying down, people found it hard to forget their antipathy. Even if they didn’t recognize her by her face, they often found her CV suspicious. Why would a renowned scientist with multiple doctorates want to work for a local restaurant?  
Moira inhaled deeply and tried to get rid of the gloomy thoughts. She still had a job opportunity left for that day, which she intended to give a try, and she needed to hurry up if she had wanted to get there in time. The place was a gas station on the outskirts of town, looking for general employees. Not as if, after her past experiences, she hoped for any positive feedback, but not giving a chance would have led to the same place as rejection.  
She got used to spending her days like this those days. She walked the city, looking up every and each possibility, hoping she would got lucky one time, but success had not found her so far.  
Having a regular job, her days had rolled on quickly, and she had often wished she could have a couple more hours for a certain project, sacrificing her free time for a possible breakthrough. But now, left without tools and employers, hours dragged themselves by painstakingly slowly. She felt she would die of idleness, wouldn’t she find any kind of occupation very soon.  
Dublin’s streets held relatively few people strolling, since at most places it was still the middle of working hours. Only the crisp autumn wind was left, chasing fallen leaves on the cracked concrete.  
Moira drew her coat tighter, and tucked her tufts under her cap. Over her wanderings she had to realize people were less likely to recognize her if they didn’t see her hair. As if burning red strands were the only thing they remembered about her.  
Hadn’t she been sparing money, she would have considered using some kind of dye.  
Still she couldn’t figure it out what she would do, had nobody shown any kind of willingness to employ her. She could turn to Assa, but the thought itself, to be their burden, made her feel uncomfortable.  
Her sister had offered her help when she had first heard about the scandal, but Moira turned her down without even thinking. She would have found it humiliating to depend on her family like this, even more humiliating than working at a gas station.  
So she started her journey with hurried steps towards where she thought the fastest route would be. She didn’t want to spend money on public transport, so she really needed to hurry up.  
***  
The weekly debriefing didn’t bring much news, and Jesse cursed luck for finding this occasion to be his turn as a representative of Blackwatch. Beside him Reyes hid masked his boredom with relative success, but the young man still noticed that he seemed a bit more worn-out than usual. It also wasn’t usual of him to check his phone every other minute, as if he was waiting for an important message.  
Jesse didn’t need to think hard in order to guess what was bothering the commander. It had been almost four weeks since he had sent that invitation to the Irish scientist – he couldn’t recall her name -, but there was still no answer. Why this one woman was so important to Reyes, would probably remain an eternal mystery for him. Overwatch sent several dozens of this kind of messages every month, and to most of them they never received an answer.  
Lost in their own thoughts none of them realized that every eye in the room was turned towards them, until Gabriel was jammed in the side by his other neighbour.  
“Commander!” the young woman hissed between her teeth. “They are talking to us.”  
Reyes jerked his gaze back up as if he had been caught doing something prohibited.  
“Yes?”  
It could be clearly seen that Commander Morrison needed serious self-control to keep his patience.  
“I asked” he started slowly, emphasizing each word “how the specifications for the building and equipping of the Rome base were progressing. The ones we have talked about last week.”  
The leader of Blackwatch nodded, and stood up to present the plans set out up to that point, with the help of the slides projected to the middle of the room. Jesse leaned back with a muffled groan. Somebody should really set up a maximum time span for these debriefings.  
***  
When Morrison finally officially put an end to the meeting, Gabriel felt the exact same relief he saw on the face McCree sitting next to him. He was bothered by the thought that he still hadn’t got a reply for his approach. Dr. O’Deorain didn’t seem like the person who would postpone her formal letters.  
What could be holding her back then?  
He had told Jesse that judging by the scientific achievements of the woman, he found he useful for the organization. Technically speaking he didn’t even lie. O’Deorain really held a potential that could help them in the currently unfolding situation.  
Nobody said it out loud, but the criminal rates were gradually going up in Europe, and the name Talon turned up more and more frequently. As an answer, with the help of the geneticist, they could even start a new Soldier Enhancement Program.  
As for Gabriel, he would have been content if they only got down to the old one again. As the years and months passed, he felt it more and more clearly that somebody seriously messed something up twenty-five years ago.  
For a long time everything had been going as it has been planned. Sure, there had been strange incidents in the beginning too, but none of them had payed much attention to it back then. They had dutifully submitted themselves to all the tests, done the prescribed special training, and let the doctors and engineers do their jobs. Then and there none of them had thought of asking the question, that out of a hundred men and women chosen, why they had only pronounced eighty successful in the end.  
It had been war, and that was the fate of soldiers. They were consumable products, especially against Omnic armies.  
It was another question that soldiers were supposed to die in battle, not on operating tables.  
Or decades later at some jerkwater base, where nobody would know what caused their demise.  
The symptoms had come slyly, one by one, first irregularly, then becoming more and more threatening. Reyes didn’t want to turn to the medics of Overwatch. Confidentiality or not, his work permit could be withdrawn, and he wanted nothing less than to spend his last years on disability pension. If he had to go, he wanted to do it as he lived. Fighting.  
Still, at this point had no intention of taking that opportunity.  
A couple of years earlier he had consulted with Dr. Ziegler, who hadn’t been an official member of Overwatch back then, thereby she hadn’t have the means to decide about his work permit. The woman had been keeping a good relationship with the organization since her teenage years, so Gabriel had known her enough to trust in her expertise. First she hadn’t been able to recognize the unusual combination of symptoms, which seemed to attack at random places. Her first guess had been a simple organ failure associated with age, but that hadn’t seemed likely with an otherwise fully healthy man in his early forties.  
The second diagnosis had been an undefined autoimmune disease, and the doctor had seemed much more worried by then. She’d asked about the medical background of Gabriel’s family, but he hadn’t been able to give her information about that. Had there been any kind of medical records about his parents, it probably had been destroyed during the war, and he seriously doubted his ancestors before them had ever contacted any kind of medical service.  
Dr. Ziegler had let her go then, with medicinal treatment, that had helped his then-actual symptoms, but the effect hadn’t lasted long. As time went by, the problems got more and more serious, and the furrow between Angela’s eyebrows got deeper when she’d look at the test results. She hadn’t try to feed him illusions, she had admitted she probably wouldn’t be able to defeat whatever was consuming Gabriel’s body, not with her current means. Would they continue their mindless run after symptoms, drugs would probably ruin his body before the disease itself could.  
Of course that hadn’t meant the woman had wanted to stop her efforts, but they’d had to be much more careful.  
A couple of months later she had joined Overwatch officially, and the commander had consciously started to make his visits at the doctor’s less and less frequent. He felt the aggravation of the disease more and more seriously. Even though the frequent medication somewhat held the tempo back, the time would soon come when he’d be classified inadequate for field work. If he’s lucky, he gets an office job, but for him that would be just as bad as total pension.  
No, he did not intend to retire.  
By this time his visits with Dr. Ziegler were limited to the strictly necessary length, then he would always leave, using his busy schedule as an excuse. She, of course didn’t want to leave the matter at that, so he started to avoid her consciously. He himself was trying to search for a solution with all his power, but he could only request the public documents of the genetic program, which did not help him much.  
When Jesse had called his attention to Moira, first in a long time a faint light of hope shined in the dark tunnel that used to seem endless. A far, little, barely visible flame, but still, it was there.  
If only she answered that damn letter!  
“Still nothing?” Some kind of sympathy shone in McCree’s eyes, as the young man forked his tobacco and match boxes from his pocket. Though if there was anybody who didn’t have the right to lecture him about health-destructive habits, it was Gabriel, he still couldn’t accept that the kid didn’t get a decent lighter. Not like he had any chance to change his mind. Jesse stuck to his whims, just as much as he stuck to his ridiculous hat.  
In the end he held himself back, and let it go unchallenged. He just shook his head. Nothing.  
“Is this chick really that important? The world’s full of mad scientists, you could damn sure dig up another if it’s a must.”  
Gabriel sighed. If it was that easy…  
“Believe me, if it was so, I’d have done it long ago. But Dr. O’Deorain’s knowledge is unique, and I couldn’t find anything similar, not even if I started to dig up a whole cemetery with a toy shovel.”  
Had the boy known how fitting the picture truly was, he probably wouldn’t have laughed so heartily. As he realized his superior didn’t share his amusement, he too loured, and with his head he beckoned to the glass door opening to one of the inner yards.  
“Ya know what, boss? If you come with me while I take a smoke, we might find something to help you out a bit. Actually, now, can you call Fio? I reckon I’ve got an idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. Comments, constructive criticism and grammar help are always welcome!


	4. Chapter 2 Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Moira visits a place she probably shouldn't, and the trio of Gabe, Jesse and Fio sets off to do something Jack would probably frown upon. What a luck they don't ask him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So seems like Chapter Two will have at least two more parts, since there is approx 4k words left from it, and I don't think I'll translate more than 2k in one go. It depends on how long the scenes are, I guess.

Moira glanced at the screen of her phone, then at the building standing in front of her, which probably had seen better days, and tried to confine her nervousness. She couldn’t be wrong, this must have been the place the advertisement was about, and the time also squared, still, something wasn’t right.

The suburban petrol station looked exactly as worn-down as she vaguely remembered. She had driven by only a few times when she had been heading for a field-day, and her gaze usually would slip over it without giving it a closer look. But now, as she was standing right there, in the parking area, looking at the walls yellowed by air pollution, she had to realize that reality couldn’t exceed her memories.

The service station was one of those that probably were remnants of pre-war times, at least the age-old, ragged signs and rust gnawing at the metal building elements led her to this conclusion. Hadn’t she got this exact address, hadn’t she seen the slightly blinking neon light leaking from the glass door of the station’s small shop, she probably would have thought it had been long out of use. It was also possible that it was exactly what had happened to it, and now some brave (and probably insane) entrepreneur was trying to breath life into the business again. It would have explained why they had agreed to see her for an interview. Their situation must have been truly aggravating.

With careful, still distrustful steps, Moira neared the building – though, in her personal opinion, the makeshift structure wouldn’t have deserved this honourable title, not even in it’s youth. Inside they probably had already been waiting for her, and noticed her presence, because movement woke behind the windows clouded by the filth of years, and shortly the motion-sense door laboriously slid aside with a characteristic hiss.

In the opening, to the greatest surprise of the scientist, appeared the head of a young girl, probably in her early twenties. She didn’t fit in the almost post-apocalyptic surroundings. She wore her curly, black hair in a ponytail on her nape, and was wearing an apron with the emblem of the petrol station over her casual clothes. She greeted the newcomer with a cheerful, yet polite smile.

“Dr. O’Deorain?” When Moira nodded, she stood aside, and gestured for her to get inside. “Welcome, I’m Charlotte.”

***

“So you want to say we’re _skipping over_ to Dublin, just to ask your girlfriend why she doesn’t answer your letters?” The gleam in the pilots eye clearly told how much she was amused by the situation, and the commander had known her long enough not to bother setting her words right.

“Do you have any problem with the task, cadet?” Reyes raised his eyebrows.

“Not a single one, sir!” the girl grinned.

Fio was one of the most outstanding subject of the youth fighter pilot training program of Overwatch, and exactly the person, who was up to missions like this anytime. Gabriel wasn’t trying too hard to conceal his intention, that as soon as she got her official papers, he would initiate her relocation into the Blackwatch staff. Most probably he wouldn’t have an easy time with it, since commanders mostly weren’t keen on getting rid of prodigies like her, still, he had no doubt he would get out as the winner from the clash of interests.

Exactly because of this reason, he tried to include the girl in as many missions of the easier kind as he could. She could accredit them as field experience, while she also gained opportunity to take a look inside the inner mechanism of the subdivision. He couldn’t risk taking in anybody who didn’t know what they were getting into. These kids, due to their age, couldn’t remember the war, so they weren’t aware why the work Blackwatch was needed. Most of them had no idea that the mother organization, currently completing peacekeeping tasks, hadn’t been designed for that purpose at all. That old Overwatch which used to be led by Strike Commander Gabriel Reyes lived on as a smaller covert operations team. Many stepped back from the opportunity when they realized what they would be doing exactly, and Gabriel wanted to prevent this with his personal mediation.

As for now, Fio hadn’t shown any sign of repulsion by their missions. Of course this one didn’t belong to their usual kind of operations, but the doctor was enough reason for him not to want an outsider pilot for the task.

He didn’t ask for a preliminary permission from Jack, the officer responsible for the hangars would notify him of their leaving anyway. Personally, he had always preferred the method of posterior apology in situations like this. It was much easier than spending hours, if not days, with getting all the papers needed, especially if the whole torture wasn’t even getting him a green sign.

As for his old friend, he must have already been used to Gabriel’s actions of this kind. Also, Dr. O’Deorain could be useful for him too, no matter how much he was hiding behind his moral boundaries.

“Sir, if I can offer a remark…” Fio looked up when they were in safe distance from the base, and she could hand off the control to the autopilot system.

Reyes and McCree were sitting in the passengers’ seat of the small troopship, studying the map shown by the holoprojector that was built in the armrest between them. They were trying to figure out, which route could take them in and out of the section of town where the subject lived, in the shortest time and with the least noise.

“I’m all ears, cadet” Gabriel grumbled without looking up.

“Don’t take it as an offense” though she was sitting with her back to them, her voice gave away her usual, barely not impolite grin “, but my mother always warned me about guys who, by impulse, fly one and half an hour to my house, only to push me into an unknown vehicle and drive away.”

Jesse tried to muffle his snorting laugh with his fist, but the commander didn’t even bat an eye.

“What a luck that Dr. O’Deorain probably doesn’t live with her mother anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! As usual, any comments, constructive criticism, grammar correction or suggestions are welcome. I love you all. :)


	5. Chapter 2 Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moira gets unusual questions at her interview, and Gabe, as usual, forgets to think before acting. McCree is not-so-silently judging him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, yes, I'm still alive. My university semester started, so I have less time to translate and even less time to write new things now. I'll still try to keep up. Anyway, here it goes.

The job interview started exactly like all the others she had done in the past month. Warm-up query about family background, motivational talk, professional experience, former jobs, why did she want this opportunity? The same generic questions with the same generic answers. Moira, without paying much attention, replied to Charlotte, while discreetly trying to evaluate her surroundings. Ever since she had entered the petrol station’s area, some kind of ominous presentiment didn’t leave her. She couldn’t quite point the reason out, but something was definitely not right with the whole situation.

“So you mentioned that you used to be a university professor?” asked the young woman sitting in the armchair across her, with a polite smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Most certainly she noticed that the interviewee’s attention had slipped away.

Moira nodded. The uniform, fake leather seats were placed in the corner of the shop made of pre-produced elements, and they probably served as a coffee corner for the drivers who wanted to take a break. They smelled like dust and fuel oil.

“Yes, but not in the status of a lecturer. I would rather say I belonged to the research department.

Charlotte looked down to her tablet, on which she probably had the scientist’s previously submitted CV opened.

“I see you graduated as a geneticist from the Medical University of Dublin, but you also got a degree of medical engineering at the University of Technology, as a parallel training.

O’Deorain nodded again. She didn’t understand, what all these questions about her university years were useful for. A gas station employee didn’t need any professional skillset, if the operating of a coffee machine or cleaning windows didn’t count as such.

As for cleaning, her predecessor had probably been trying to gain some extra money from that, because the linoleum floor was shining in the blinking neon lights as if it had been new, and the sharp smell of antiseptics lingered in the air. Nonetheless, the fact she was sitting in that shabby armchair implied their efforts hadn’t been fruitful.

The brow of the dark haired woman across her twisted into a frown.

“However I see it here that you spent seven years at the Medical University. As far as I know, they have six-year trainings.” The crease smoothened, and amusement returned to Charlotte’s eyes. “But I must be mistaken. You don’t look like someone who repeats years.”

Moira, for the first time during the interview, was honestly surprised. This small detail usually went unnoticed even by her employers of her profession, not to mention the ones of this kind. Anyway, now that it had already happened, she didn’t see any sense in not being honest about it.

“The training officially lasts for six years, indeed” she replied in a calm tone “, and you were not wrong about my not repeating a year due to failed subjects either.”

Charlotte nodded for her to continue.

“Due to an insubordination process, I could only graduate a year late.”

A tiny smile appeared on the lips of the woman in front of her, which Moira couldn’t interpret. What made her so happy?

“Forgive me for being nosy!” the other backed immediately, digging into her dark locks, of which some had escaped from her ponytail. “You know, the thing is, I also started as a medic student, but it turned out I wasn’t good enough. That’s how I got to HR” she shrugged regretfully. “What do you think, maybe you could tell me more about it by a coffee? You’re my guest.

Moira glanced at the window, and slightly surprised she had to realize it was almost fully dark outside. Autumn brought the night faster and faster day by day, and she hadn’t really had the chance to drink a proper cup of coffee for a while. She didn’t have any more plans for the day, what harm could staying a bit cause? Who knows, even if she doesn’t get the job, maybe Charlotte knew some professional companies who would be willing to employ her.

After a bit of hesitating she nodded.

“Thank you, I accept your invitation.”

***

Once again Gabriel knocked on the door of the upstairs flat, but he didn’t get an answer this time either. Pressing the doorbell several times was just as much a fruitless effort. He was sure they were at the right place, the brass plate attached at eye-level saying _Dr. Moira O’Deorain_ told him so, but it didn’t seem like there was anybody inside.

He was turning around to talk through the following steps with Jesse when he saw the middle-aged man, hurrying up the stairs with shopping bags in both hands. He looked over the two strangers in a few moments, before reaching their level he spoke up:

“Are you looking for Dr. O’Deorain? She moved out last month, they just haven’t changed the nameplate yet” he gestured towards the door apologetically. “You know this used to be her university lodging.”

“Who would have thought…” McCree grumbled, leaning on the railing of the staircase. In hindsight he was right, the fact that they were in the middle of an university campus gave some rise to suspicion.

“Do you know where she moved to, by any chance?” Reyes inquired, with the most persuasive facial expression he could manage, though the effect was probably highly weakened by the scars across his face. Probably that was one of the reasons that made cautious distrust appear in the eye of the man.

“In what business are you seeking her?”

The commander made the decision in the tenth of a second. During his past years he had learned that the best cover stories were built on truth, and he decided he could take the risk in this case.

“A job offer. Dr. O’Deorain has been found adequate for the position, but she doesn’t reply to our mails. Unfortunately there are some structural changes happening in our company right now, and we can’t afford missing any possible candidates.”

The man’s eye softened for a moment, as he stepped to the door next to the one previously under siege by the agents.

“To which address have you written to her?” When Gabriel showed it to him on his phone, the neighbour shook his head pitying. “This was her university mail address, she lost it with her status.”

Gabriel silently cursed himself. Why hadn’t he thought of this? He knew it very well that the woman had lost her job at the University of Dublin, why had he assumed that she could keep the right to the extra services connected to it?

He already felt this tiny detail wouldn’t be explained in a great detail in his report.

It seemed their helper decided to have mercy on them, as he sighed and gestured towards his own door with his head.

“Look, maybe Moira’s methods were such as they were, but as a person, I’ve never had any problem with her. I’d be glad if finally she found a stable place for herself. She didn’t deserve what she got.” He tapped his doorframe. “I can’t tell you her new address right now, but we should have it in the registry. If you give me a moment, I’ll fetch it for you.”

Gabriel nodded gratefully.

“We’d thank that” he shot a short glance to the nameplate “, Dr. Halloran.”

The man nodded to tell them it was no trouble, then he disappeared in the apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Any comment or opinion is welcome! :)


	6. Chapter 2 Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The shit slowly flies near the so-called fan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I'm alive! I finally had a couple of free hours on a train, so I translated another part.

“So tell me!” Charlotte took the seat across again, after handing one of the cups of freshly brewed coffee to her guest. “How did you manage to get into an insubordination process?”

Moira took a deep breath, inhaling the steam of the hot liquid. The scent itself filled her with new energy. How much she had missed this in the past month!

“As I have mentioned before, it happened in the year that should have been my last” she started the story, wrapping her fingers comfortably around the cup’s warm ceramic. The petrol station’s building probably hadn’t been built with comfort as a priority, since its thermal insulation left much to be desired. “I was working on my thesis for the doctor’s degree.”

“What was your research subject?” Charlotte was looking at her attentively, head slightly turned sideways. It seemed like she was genuinely interested in the topic, which did feed Dr. O’Deorain’s professional pride in no small measure. These days acknowledgement wasn’t given to her too generously, and even small things like this could feel nice.

“Structural changes in human genetics throughout the different development stages of the body.” Moira blew at her coffee carefully, and simply by the temperature of the steam she could determine that it was yet inadequate to drink. “Of course it meant the analysis of a vast amount of samples, from infants to antediluvians, men and women, healthy and sick. I did a really comprehensive work, and my teachers would have been utmost satisfied with the essay, but not me. There was something missing.”

Her interviewer gestured her to continue, but her gaze gave it away that she could already guess the followings.

 _She’s cleverer than she wants to show –_ the scientist noticed with slight acknowledgement. Thus, however, the question how she had ended up here, at a petrol company’s HR department arose.

“I had yet to cover the posthumous changes in my study, and without that, the circle remained unclosed.”

Charlotte frowned.

“Posthumous changes? But then the chairs are packed on the tables, lights are turned out and doors are closed. Boom, it’s all ended, isn’t it?”

Moira drew her lips to a dry smile. Yes, this gave a relatively satisfying answer to her previous question. All that glitters is not gold.

“No, far from it.” She took a small sip from her coffee. The bitter aroma of the now consumable temperature drink reminded her to the long hours spent in laboratories, filling her with a pleasant feeling of calm. For her it was the taste of home. “It is a relatively under-researched subject, especially back then, but the genetic structure of beings go through changes during the phases of decomposition too. It would have put the crown on my thesis, but there was a small problem. Obtaining human bodies is hard, even at medical universities, especially for personal research purposes.”

“Oh.” Charlotte’s face showed that she could follow the line again, and her eyes widened for a moment when she realized what was coming next.

“Regardless, I couldn’t stop. I was so close to success! So I obtained a corpse.” She lifted the cup to her mouth again, to moisten her dry-from-speech throat. “The details are not important now, the point is that I could transfer it to my dormitory room relatively intact.”

“Why did you even take it home?”

Moira laughed, and this time she didn’t even try to hide the slightly up-stage tone of her voice.

“The research required constant supervision and regular sampling in every stage of decomposition. I needed a place where I could keep my eyes on it, and only I had access to. I placed it in the bathroom, and gave the doors extra insulation to prevent the spreading of odours. Regrettably I wasn’t able to do a work careful enough, because after a few weeks, the inhabitants of the neighbouring rooms started to complain about the smell.”

She felt the memory and the pain of the wound caused by humiliation as vividly as if it had happened that day, not ten years before. From that matter, back then she also thought her carrier had died an ugly death before it could have get the chance to be born. It was a familiar feeling, if she thought about it.

“I spent the following day at the district police station. You know when they find a corpse someone’s home, they usually don’t take it lightly.”

Charlotte’s giggle which she tried to hide behind her hands betrayed that she must have visualized the scene.

“And what’s the end of the story?” the dark-haired woman inquired after she managed to calm herself.

“After they found out that the body indeed belonged to the university morgue, they didn’t bring a charge against me for murder, but an insubordination process was started within the institution itself.  They sentenced me to a year of passive status, which, looking back, was quite a light punishment. Probably the board also realized that the weight of my study justified the crimes charged against me to some measure.”

“I can’t even imagine what I would have got, if I stole a corpse” Charlotte shivered.

Moira drank down the remainders of her coffee, and shrugged.

“I believe it is typically an activity that the assigned authorities heavily advise against trying at home.”

In the momentary silence, Moira looked at the clock of her phone, and to her surprise, she realized it was much later than she expected. She looked at the other person apologetically.

“Forgive me, but it is about time for me to head home, if I want to get there in time. You know I like quite far.”

Charlotte nodded sympathetically, and took her empty cup helpfully.

“Of course. Thank you for the talk, Dr. O’Deorain! I have to tell you, I was not disappointed, quite the opposite. The phone number we talked by las time is still relevant, right?”

Moira nodded, and buttoned the coat on her chest. She couldn’t see the trees on the street, but she assumed the wind had only risen since she had arrived.

“Great. Expect me to look you up in a few days, as soon as I’ve finished running the official processes. Thank you again for the talk!”

“The pleasure is mine.” The scientist only now, standing up, started to feel the heavy fatigue of the long day spent with walking and fruitless interviews. So she said goodbye in a hurry, and stepped out into the autumn evening, wrapping her arms tightly around herself. Her lips formed a smile. Fatigue or not, this had still been the most successful meeting of the kind of all the previous ones, and it filled her with relief and unexplainable joy.

It was nice to feel solid ground beneath her feet again.

But now it would have been wise to hurry up a bit. The outskirts of Dublin were not a place she wanted to spend more time than necessary after sunset.

***

They found the new flat of Dr. O’Deorain in a much more modest district of the city. Probably luxury wasn’t on the top of her list when it came to getting by, at least that’s what the slowly exfoliating paint on the wall and the serious lack of streetlights told them.

On the doorbell referenced by Dr. Halloran was an unfamiliar name. It seemed as if nobody cared to bother with it after the change in ownership.

Gabriel pressed the button long, and the past-decade gear dutifully started to play a simplified and noticeably distorted version of Beethoven’s Für Elise. Meanwhile McCree was watching the street with cigar in his mouth, leaning on the door, though his efficiency was significantly hindered by the glow, which could probably be seen even from the next block of flats.

After three loops of ringing, Reyes stepped back with a resigned sigh, and shook his head.

“Nothing.”

Jesse set his hat straight with a questioning look.

“We try to get in anyway?”

“Hold your horses” his boss stopped him. “She’s probably just…”

His words were cut short by a silent, but unmistakeable beep, causing both men to freeze, and reach to their belts. Gabriel signed his companion that he would take the call, and with that movement he unhooked his communicator. At the moment, apart from Fio’s device, it was only tuned to the area organizational channel. Which meant either their pilot got into trouble, or…

 _To every unit in the area! Suspicious activity has been reported in the outskirts of Dublin_ – the dispatcher listed the coordinates -, _by our information, there are at least six hostiles, approximately half of them are visibly armed. Their identification was unsuccessful. I admonish any unit stationed in the area to report to duty!”_

The two Blackwatch agents looked at each other.

“Officially we took a day off” Jesse called attention to the evident.

“Honestly, do we have anything better to do?” Reyes raised an eyebrow. “It’s better than sitting on the doorstep until the doc gets back. If the old man didn’t have us on, for the matter.”

McCree didn’t need much encouragement, he switched to Fio’s channel.

“Did you hear it?” she spoke with excitement.

“Sure I did. You up for a little extra trip?”

***

The light of the petrol station slowly faded behind her, and was almost completely gone when an uncomfortable feeling raised its head inside Moira again. Something was not right.

The silence was too deep. She clearly remembered seeing streetlamps on the way here, so why was there none of them working now? As she looked back, she couldn’t see the station’s lights in the distance either. As if it had never been there.

She stopped abruptly. It’s impossible, she couldn’t be that far that she couldn’t have seen it at all. She felt the unexplainable tightness of panic in her lungs, and no matter how deep breaths she took, she felt she couldn’t get enough oxygen. As she raised her hands in front of her eyes, she had to realize they were trembling uncontrollably.

She tried to disregard the symptoms and put her thoughts in order. These reactions weren’t typical of her body, on the whole they were exactly like…

By the time she realized what the problem was, it was too late. The ground slipped from under her feet, and somewhere bluntly she felt her shoulder hit the ground. The pain felt distant, as if her veins had been filled with a great dose of lidocaine. Her fingers felt numb, and no matter how hard she tried to get up, her muscles were too weak, she couldn’t even raise her head. She tried to call out, but no sound left her throat.

Distant steps, sound of military boots on dirty concrete. Hands grabbed her and lifted her up, rough, as if she had been an oversized bag of flour, then the world was swallowed by darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking with me! Any comments are welcome. :)
> 
> (High five to those who noticed the not-so-subtle Sandman reference hidden in there.)


	7. Chapter 2 part 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What to do if you find a random person being kidnapped? Kill the kidnappers and kidnap them yourself! (Useful Blackwatch Guidelines #523)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have to state that I've never been to Dublin or anywhere near, so all the information of the surroundings were made up. Any resemblance to reality indicates that I can see thousands of kilometres or that I'm some kind of wizard, lol. Or Both.
> 
> Also I was struggling to decide about the gender of which they refer to Moira in this scene, since they don't really know who she is, and they are almost certainly sure she's a guy. So I kind of decided on an in-between solution, and used 'they/them' all along (I hope. I might have messed up with all the varying). You know my language doesn't have gender pronouns, so I didn't really have to worry about it when I was writing the chapter. Then there came English, and I had to.

“Command centre, this is Commander Gabriel Reyes. We are on our way towards the target.” He fell silent, listening to the answer of the other side, then grunted impatiently. “Yes, Reyes, you heard it well. Two armed and a pilot. No, we don’t want you to, I’ll tell you when we need backup. Yes, regular information would be great. Fio, how far are we?”

“About two and half a minute.”

“Two and half a minute” the commander passed on the information. “We’ll check in later, Reyes out.”

With an impatient motion, he turned off the microphone of the device. His movements showed the tension McCree had seen on him before so many missions. The relaxed man with his dry humor who back in the day had taught him hand-to-hand combat in their free time, fully disappeared these times, giving place to the person most people knew as Commander Gabriel Reyes. In the grim soldier working with ruthless efficiency there was no trace of the other Gabe.

“I can’t believe it. They pay them to be fussy, or what?” the older man growled, checking his guns again, for the last time. “What can they not understand about my name?”

“Well, maybe it’s something to do with us officially being a hundred kilometres from here” Jesse suggested. He only got a grunt as an answer, but he didn’t take it personally. The commander had his own style, but he wouldn’t have traded him for the world. He was in his position for a reason.

The plan made while waiting for Fio and in the previous three minutes of their trip was simple, but hopefully good enough to work. They would put down the dropship on the other side of the main road, so the noise wouldn’t draw attention to them, then they would approach the enemy from behind, Gabriel on the ground, McCree searching for a spot on the lower roofs, where he can have a good view on the situation, drawing away the attention of the ones below, if needed. The command centre talked about light civilian activity, but they agreed on only taking it in count if it was necessary. The district didn’t seem like a place people would willingly traverse after dark.

The aircraft descended with a slight sway, about a hundred meters from the road, in the middle of an unmown field. The beacons and inner lights had been turned off to prevent attention.

The two men changed into a loose jog, trying to assess the field before them. From this distance they could clearly see the lines where public lighting suddenly disappeared, as if a cable had been cut.

McCree personally strongly doubted this had happened, they wouldn’t have been called to amateurs like that. Anyway, he headed towards one of the borderlines, while Reyes automatically took his way towards the other. During the nearly ten years of service spent together, they grew together in a way. They could predict the other’s next action from a single motion, so this came as naturally as one wipes their mouth after eating.

When the two of them took a mission, they often used this tactic; they could cover a relatively wide area while staying close enough to each other to cover the other person’s back. The young man felt this was particularly important now. No matter how hard the Commander tried to pretend everything was alright, he couldn’t fool Jesse. He had known him too long not to notice the change in his posture, the constant fatigue on his features. There was something seriously wrong, and he was set to go and ask him as soon as they are done with this mission. Even if Reyes tells him to go to hell without thinking. They were a team, so it was his duty to look after the older man when he didn’t do so.

As he reached the other side of the road, he slowed his steps. The centre was talking about six people, three of them armed, which meant there could be a dozen of them in well-hidden stances. He didn’t want to risk it. The information didn’t say what the suspicious actions were that the gang drew attention to themselves with.

So they were going to work blind on something the volume of which they had no idea of, neither they did about the tools needed.

_So much for that leave._

The rusty fire escape ladder stuck to his palms harshly as he clambered up to the roof of the building that probably served as a warehouse. A couple of hundreds of meters away, under the sky bright from light pollution, he could make out the dark silhouette of an old petrol station, unused for years. Probably his spot of choice also used to belong to it back in the day.

When he got to a distance where there was a chance for him to be spotted from the street, if there had been somebody watching the roofs, he first got down on hands and knees, then on his stomach, crawling to the edge. Probably while doing so, his originally black sweater and trousers turned grey from the dirt that gathered there over the years, but he couldn’t care less. It was part of his job.

Down he didn’t see any movement at first, but that didn’t mean there was nobody but him on that part of the street. By the sign system they had worked out together, he patted the microphone of the communicator hooked into his ear, signalling that he had reached his previously marked position.

He barely got the affirmative _pat_ , when he noticed a strange sound. As if somebody had been walking slightly stumbling, stopping time to time. It was the distinctive sound of the drunk, and that confused him. Who comes out this far just to drink themselves to the ground?

The guy would have drawn his attention with their height even if they weren’t wandering alone on an empty street. They were obviously the source of the sounds: they moved with such uncertainty as if they were walking on cankerous planks that sank under their feet as they stepped on them, not on solid concrete. They were dragging their feet lubberly, and their balance swayed strongly, confirming the theory of an errant drunkard.

 _Civilian_ – he patted to Reyes, who acknowledged again, signalling that he was heading towards Jesse’s direction. His area was clear.

When the stranger fully entered his field of vision, they halted and turned around. At the same time the shadows started to move.

***

When McCree signalled there were civilians in his area, Reyes instantly headed towards his direction. Of course there was a chance that it was only an errant passer-by, who strayed into the neighbourhood this late, but he knew there were no such accidents. It wasn’t more than a hunch, but he let it lead him.

As he passed the abandoned petrol station, he already knew he made the right decision. Most of the actual fuel dispensers seemed to be unserviceable or fully missing, but in the shop itself everything was in such order, as if it was still in service. And he was sure it wasn’t just a long-closed unit, somehow preserved in a relatively good state; the magazines on the stand next to the glass window were all from that month, and as he peeked inside cautiously, he found seemingly fresh bakery products by the cash register.

A cold shiver ran down his spine, as from wall to wall, shadow to shadow he tried to get as far as possible from the gas station. He couldn’t get rid of the feeling he had just taken a glance through the curtains of a stage all set up.

Not much later his gaze found Jesse’s civilian. The tall, pale figure was staring in his direction as if they had seen a ghost. He strongly doubted they had noticed him, but the stranger’s body language said they had been frightened by something.

He stumbled upon the first hidden hostile in about a tenth of a second, as he stepped out from a gap that could have hardly been called an alleyway between two warehouse buildings. By his apparel and the way he confidently turned towards the civilian, Gabriel could identify him easily. The man, wearing black tactical clothing with a bulletproof west on his torso, had not noticed him yet, and Reyes didn’t give him a second chance. The vertebra of the soldier – by the way he moved, that was what he was – gave a cracking noise that sounded almost deafening in the silence, then he let the lifeless body silently slide to the ground.

At the same time Jesse started patting crazily, warning him of hostile activity, but he was a bit late, Gabriel was already holding the throat of the lurker who stepped out from the next alley. The previous one had a machine gun, the magazine of which he removed with experienced hands, this one, however seemed unarmed. So they only gave guns to the outer line of defense, to cover the backs of their comrades in the middle. If his calculations were right, they had to expect three other shooters from the remaining three directions.

Then suddenly the civilian collapsed. They swayed and fell to the ground like a heavy bag, then they stayed there, motionless.

The other ones hiding had been waiting for this exact moment; two shadows detached from the wall of the building, bent down with well-practiced ease, grabbed the body and started to back towards the darkness of a wider alleyway.

_So kidnapping it is. I was starting to miss it from my day._

The perpetrators probably felt the noose loosen around their necks, because they started to communicate in semi-loud words, which gave Gabriel the opportunity to use his comm for its intended purpose.

“I took out two, one armed. I’d say there’ll be three more at the junction.

“The shooters are mine” Jesse answered shortly. “You’ll be fine with the rest?”

“I’ll hold them up” Reyes acknowledged. “Careful! Fio, warm the engines, we’re gonna need fast extraction very soon.”

In that moment two shots were fired, immediately answered by the crackling of machine guns. The two kidnappers froze for only a moment, then hastened their pace. Seemingly they were still headed towards the warehouse alleyway, and two other figures emerged from the shadows to cover them.

Gabriel unhooked the straps holding his weapons with his thumbs, yanking them out of the holsters on his hips almost at the same time. Two shots in rapid succession, and the backup fell to the ground dead. He didn’t stop, with a long step he was already behind the carriers. He didn’t see the reaction of the soldier in front of him because of the mask he was wearing, but he didn’t gave him enough time to alert his partner. The fire of the right shotgun found him in the face, turning his mask and his skull behind it into silvery drops and shards. The stock of the left gun hit the temple of the man holding the civilian with such force, that the commander felt the cracking of broken bone under his hand. The collapsing figure took the victim down with himself, who was still unconscious. Somewhere in the fight they lost the cap covering their head, and relatively short hair fell into their face, clearly red, even in the dark.

Somewhere near the loud snap of Jesse’s flashbang sounded, and the street was filled with light for a brief moment, before with a single shot finally there was silence.

“All clear” McCree reported. “You alright there, boss?”

“Yeah, civilian secured. Fio, we’d need that extraction _now!_ ”

Tension could be heard in the usually cheerful voice of the girl, even through the radio.

“I’ll be right there, commander.”

Gabriel grimly noted that the kid was heading towards him with a light jog, while with all his caution he reached under the arms of the victim, lifting them off the ground. They weighed significantly less than he had expected, and felt surprisingly fragile, as they hang inert on his arm.

By the time Fio arrived above them, with the help of McCree and some parachord, he already fastened the unconscious body on his back, as if it was a monkey clinging onto him. It made climbing up the rope ladder much easier, and soon he was sprawled out inside the dropship, as it took its way towards the edge of the city with a sharp turn.

“Were are we heading, boss?” the pilot inquired, who was at the moment only following the orders of common sense: _away._

“Back to Zürich. If we kidnapped an innocent civilian, we’ll apologize later.”

Jesse, who by then managed to get on his feet next to him, and grabbed the net attached to the walls, cleared his throat.

“I don’t think that will be necessary, boss.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for staying with me! All the comments are appreciated. <3


	8. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabe and Jesse find out some important details, Moira swears, and finally everybody knows everybody's name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive! (Sorta.)  
> I couldn't quite focus on check-reading this, so mind my mistakes.  
> Chapter 3 also turned out to be quite short, so here's all of it.
> 
> I don't speak Irish Gaelic, so it took me quite a bit of googling to make our scientist say some nasty things. If I remember well, it's something about an itch gnawing on them? I made made some changes to the original stuff I found to make it work on multiple people. Feel free to correct me though.  
> Also, in case you wondered, yes, there is a Curse Generator In Irish Gaelic.  
> (You can find it here: http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gaeilge/donncha/focal/features/mallacht/)
> 
> Also I'm no medical expert, I'm just a simple software engineer. Which means all the medical stuff in here is a result of common sense and a tremendous amount of googling. Feel free to correct me if I got anything wrong!

Gabriel’s face rested on the floor of the aircraft, the most stable position he could find at the moment, due to the dropship’s lifting. The surface covered with a layer of antiskid rubber laid against his skin, surprisingly cool, which didn’t count as a good sign at all. Now that the adrenaline rush of the fight died down, he started to feel the fatigue that found him more and more often these days. It weighed down on his limbs so heavily that for a moment he wasn’t sure he would be able to stand up, had it been needed. For a moment he thought about asking the boy what he meant by apologizing not being necessary, then he decided they had more important problems at the moment.

“Kid, could you help me unbind the guest?” he grumbled. Though the warmth of the body pressing against his back pleasantly compensated his shivers, he wasn’t planning to lie under the package that was snuffling shallowly. They had to find out who they were and what the unidentified military forces wanted from them.

“I don’t know” he heard McCree’s drawling voice from above himself. “They’re sleeping so peacefully, I reckon they’re snug as a bug on there. Ain’t got the heart to disturb them.” His voice squarely betrayed that shit-eating grin Gabriel had failed to train out of him over all those years.

Reyes let out a dark growl and started to untie the ropes holding the inert limbs on his own, which was easier said than done.  His shoulder was far from as flexible as it used to be, he felt that increasingly those days.

Jesse watched his suffering for nearly a whole minute before taking mercy on him and kneeling down to help. As light as the victim felt when he lifted them on the street, he was still relieved to finally breathe freely.

The boy turned the foundling to their back, whose hair had already seemed reddish on the streets, but now it was almost glowing against their pale skin. Also, there was something the agents hadn’t noticed before…

“Holy…” McCree probably had got enough smacks for unnecessary swearing, because he bit the word down and just stared at their unconscious passenger in disbelief.

Gabriel for once could perfectly agree with him. The previously unidentified person, apparently, was a woman, her features and the way her grey trench coat followed the slight curve of her chest made that obvious.

“Now I wouldn’t have guessed that” Jesse shook his head, as if he still hadn’t believed his eyes. “What did they feed you to grow this big?”

“Instead of being an asshole to an unconscious person, you could fetch the first-aid kit for me. Whatever they gave her to knock her out must have been pretty brutal.”

As the kid rummaged through the crates of the storage area, Gabriel carefully undid the woman’s coat and scarf, looking for marks of injury. Ha didn’t see any ruptures on her clothes, nor wounds on her skin, at least not ones that weren’t caused by her falling. She had a nasty graze over her right cheekbone, and probably her shoulder and hip also suffered some bruising, but she seemingly didn’t have any other, more serious injury.

“We should tie her to one of the seats” Jesse motioned with his head towards the cockpit. “Fio’s gonna slam her into a wall if it goes on like this.”

“Hey, I’m trying to be careful here!” The girl’s protesting voice sounded from the seat too big for her. “Guys, I don’t know if you’ve ever tried flying a ship, but it’s not like hovercars!”

“She has a point” Reyes nodded. “What do you want, head or toe?”

Soon the woman was safely bound to one of the passanger’s seats, slightly laid back. Her coat had been removed, leaving a simple but still elegant black shirt with a purple tie that strangely didn’t ruin the impression. Whoever she was, she knew what fit her, be it as unusual as it was.

Gabriel lifted one of her eyelids with as much care as he could manage, and directed the beam of the flashlight found in the first-aid kit in there. The commander let out a small hiss. He wouldn’t have called himself an expert in anything that exceeded basic wound strapping, but even he knew what this measure of pupil dilation meant.

“I guess we need a blood sample” he turned to Jesse, who was already handing him the sterile sack with the disposable tools in it.

“I’d ask why there’s a rapid drug test in here, but I think I shouldn’t” the boy lifted a grip-sized electronic device-looking package.

In the meantime Reyes loosened the stranger’s cuffs to fold the sleeve of the shirt up to uncover her right arm. But as the dark linen revealed the pale skin, the man froze for a moment, staring with wide eyes.

From the hem of her gloves to the rolled-up sleeve, her arm was covered in greyish purple scars, and the skin among them was just as colourless, in contrast to the face dusted with fading freckles. Maybe he wasn’t the best field medic around, but Gabriel knew scars quite well. He couldn’t tell what had caused these, but he was sure they were the traces of serious injury. Whoever had done this to her…

He gulped to get rid of the lump in his throat and ran his thumb over the crook of her arm.

“No way I can find a vein on this” he muttered under his breath.

Glancing over his shoulder, McCree’s face mirrored the same shocked expression that he himself probably was wearing. The boy cursed silently and pointed to her other arm.

“Try that one, maybe?”

Though he didn’t say it, Reyes feared that the left limb would be in the exact same state. He rolled up the other sleeve, and involuntarily let out a sigh of relief. The arm looked undamaged; whatever caused the scars, it didn’t affect this one.

The two men watched in silence as the small vial was slowly filled with crimson liquid, then Gabriel pressed a piece of gauze dipped in alcohol onto the wound. He handed the blood sample to Jesse who snapped the needle off and put the small glass container into the designed socket of the manual analyser.

While they were waiting for the results, the commander was staring at the woman’s face, deep in thought. There was something in those sharp but definitely not rough lines that he found awfully familiar, he just couldn’t point out where he had seen them before. It was almost like the answer was there in the back of his mind, lurking, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t lure it out to the light.

“Now, what can I say, they really did a number on her.”

The boy turned the screen of the analyser towards him, so Gabriel could also read the results: he didn’t recognize the name of the substance, but he could determine it was probably some kind of muscle relaxant and sedative. Fortunately the manufacturer had thought of the people with a serious lack of expertise such as him, because under the “judgement” there was a short guide to the advised treatment.

Just as the text promised, they found an IV kit and a small vial with _Flumazenil_ written on it in the first-aid box. While with an impossible amount of fumbling they managed to assemble the kit, he promised a thousand times not to be impatient with Ana and Angela ever again. He could have done with their expertise then and there.

They secured the left arm of the unknown woman to the armrest of the seat with something that looked like a tourniquet used against arterial bleeding, and they hooked the IV bag to the net on the ceiling. When they were done, Jesse collapsed into the free seat, all tuckered out, while out of other options Gabriel settled down on the floor. He could have taken the co-pilot’s seat next to Fio, but he could keep a better eye on their guest this way. If the information was right, the substance tamed the effect of the drug running in her veins, and after a while she would have to regain her consciousness.

Until then…

“Kid.” McCree raised an eyebrow to the form of address. “When we took off, you said something about not needing to apologize to the lady.”

“Oh.” The boy reached into his pocket, and after short fumbling he handed his boss something that at first glance looked like a badge. “I found this on one of the shooters.”

As he took a closer look, Gabriel’s face went grim. Yes, it seemed to be a badge, one on those people stitched onto their ID holders. In Overwatch almost everyone wore one, most with the conventional design of a peace sign, and his crew with the much more imaginative skull-fighter-dagger logo. Only this one didn’t look like theirs at all; red, arabesque letter of T laid on the silver base of a shield.

_Talon._

It took him some time to regain his voice. Who the hell was this woman that they set their cap on her?

“This… rises some questions” he forced it out as he handed the badge back to its founder. “And it makes our report a bit more complicated.”

***

About three quarters of an hour had passed since they had taken off. After they hooked the unknown woman on IV, Jesse drew his hat into his face, and judging by the not quite silent snoring he let out time to time, he had fallen asleep at once. On one hand, Gabriel was happy with the silence it brought him – Fio wasn’t the talkative type -, on the other hand it consequently left him alone with his thoughts.

Their impromptu journey had taken a new direction when they had run into Talon’s soldiers, and by saving this woman they probably would gain valuable information when she’d wake up. At the same time they couldn’t achieve the original objective of the trip, and this thought drew an uncomfortable pressure around his lungs.

Though logically he knew, now that he had Dr. O’Deorain’s address, he could go back to find her anytime, somehow the suffocating presentiment lingered inside him that he wouldn’t find her there anymore.

So this was it. Maybe he would rot in agony, but at least he had tried. Cold comfort, but still more than nothing. He couldn’t have borne the thought of simply giving up.

A weird noise tore him out of his dark thoughts, somewhere halfway between a groan and a growl. First he thought it came from Fio, but she looked behind just as surprised as him.

When he realized where the sound came from, he straightened his back so abruptly that he hit his head in the slightly curved wall.

As he got up, not caring a pin about the pain, he saw his suspicion proven true: their guest’s eyelid first just twitched, then opened to a small gap only to shut it tight again with a painful guttural sound. She must have been bothered by the lights of the cabin – he realized slightly late.

“Fio, turn the lights down” he said silently, but the girl heard it, since the light suddenly dimmed significantly, covering them in dusk.

The woman tried again, this time succeeding in fully opening her eyes. As their gazes met, Gabriel took a step back in surprise. He had seen people with mismatched eye colours before, but all of them had blue and green or brown and green, in short, somewhat harmonizing pairings. On the contrary, one of their guest’s irises was bright red, while the other gleamed icy blue.

Her gaze was still a bit hazy, and she blinked hard to regain her focus. The fingers of her left hand twitched, and when she realized she couldn’t move her arm, her glance slowly wandered to the peripheral venous catheter disappearing under her skin there. It seemed like it took her a couple off moments to process what she was seeing, probably the effect of sedatives was still wearing off. Then she raised her eyes to the man standing above her, and though he still had the impression she was looking somewhere behind him, it seemed like she was more or less conscious.

She opened her mouth. First there was no sound, but after a couple of shots she managed to somewhat regain her ability to speak.

“Who…” Her words weren’t the most understandable, partly due to her heavy accent, partly because the still present effect of the drugs in her system. “Who did insert the IV needle?”

The question honestly surprised Gabriel. It wasn’t something freshly awakened people usually wanted to know first, he had expected her to ask his name instead.

He cleared his throat.

“I did.”

She made a snorting noise.

“I don’t mean to offend you, but you did an atrocious job.” Her words were much more clear this time.

The commander felt blood rush into his face.

“I’m sorry” he bowed his head. “I’m usually on the other side of the needle.”

“I couldn’t have said it better” the stranger murmured. “What did you put in it?”

Gabriel looked up to read the word written in a hurry on the IV bag; no way could he remember it on his own.

“Flumazenil, if it means anything to you.”

To his greatest surprise, the woman gave a small nod, though by her facial expression, the motion was quite strenuous to her.

“It does.” Her voice was just as grim as her eyes. “And it explains why I am unable move properly. When did you insert it?”

Reyes glanced at the cockpit’s control panel clock over the back of Fio’s seat.

“Forty-nine minutes ago.”

The guest nodded again, her chin going a bit further down this time.

“At the very latest ten minutes from now changed to saline! You have it, am I right?”

He nodded uncertainly.

“Grand. Now… who are you and what is this place?”

Gabriel kneeled down among the scattered first-aid kit to find the pack asked by the woman.

“How much do you remember of the evening?”

She frowned, gazing into space with narrowed eyes, it seemed like she was trying to gather her shards of memory.

“I… there was a job interview. At a gas station. Then I took off, and then nothing, everything is just a blur. I mean…” Her surprisingly deep voice broke for a moment. “ _Go n-ithe an tochas iad!_ Of course it was the coffee.”

Gabriel couldn’t make any sense from the words in English, but the parts in that foreign language undoubtedly sounded like cursing. He was about to ask what she was talking about, but she was faster.

“Who are you? What is this place?” Elemental panic appeared in her eyes that reminded him of an encaged wild animal.

He put the just found IV bag down carefully, and slowly, palms out he raised his hands, showing he had no intention of causing any harm to her. Whoever she thought he was, she didn’t have a really high opinion of him.

“My name is Gabriel Reyes” he said slowly, his gaze locked to the guest’s all along. “And this is a military dropship under the flag of Overwatch. At this time we are about halfway to Zürich.”

The woman didn’t look any less distrustful, but at least now she radiated confusion instead of panic.

“Overwatch? But then what am I doing here?”

“By chance we witnessed as an unidentified military group” he didn’t mention Talon on purpose “tried to kidnap you. Now we are heading to the Swiss base. We are sorry for your inconvenience, but you can give us valuable information about your attackers.”

The stranger nodded slowly, like someone who is trying hard to process information. The movement of her head still seemed laboured, but it showed significant progress from the initial trials.

Gabriel watched her for a couple of seconds before asking the question that kept his mind occupied from the beginning of their flight:

“Now you know my name. Can you tell me yours?”

The woman hesitated for a moment, and Reyes almost thought she’d never answer, when she spoke up, voice hoarse from dehydration.

“Moira.” It felt like the commander was watching a slow motion video as she raised her eyes to him and repeated: “Dr. Moira O’Deorain.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. I love to read your opinions, so feel free to share them with me.  
> Also, could anyone tell me how to pronounce Moira's surname properly? Is it 'Oh-De-Oh-Rain' or 'Oh-Doran' or something entirely different?


	9. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone gets an offer, some people get worried about it. Also Moira is better at negotiation that Gabe has expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! I'm finally done with my exams, which means I had time to translate a whole chapter. Actually I could have cut this in two, but if I did, it would have taken a long time to finish the other part so I decided not to be lazy and do it in one go.
> 
> Also we have interesting news. Bastet is a goldmine lore-wise and no-one can convince me otherwise. (Also if we're talking about Bastet, this chapter, and actually every chapter up to ch9 was written before Jack's orientation became canon. It doesn't really affect my plot, but if you read something that sounds like a gay joke, it probably isn't one.) I really have to take it apart before I start this year's camp nano. So much lore info.
> 
> My usual disclaimer: I'm no medical, military or law professional, so whatever I wrote is the result of a tremendous amount of googling. Feel free to tell me if I made mistakes!

They weren’t able to go through with the silent and unnoticeable landing they had originally planned. As soon as they got in the range of communication, Fio notified the headquarters about their need of medical attendance. The exact details were dictated by the newest passenger herself, a long, thin tube still connecting her arm to the IV bag hanging from the ceiling, but already in better shape. Her speech for example had gotten perfectly intelligible in the last half an hour, except for the strong accent.

Hadn’t she been there personally, she wouldn’t have believed the sharp turn the story took. First they had scoured the whole city for one person – alright, Commander Reyes and Jesse had, she’d just sit in her seat comfortably -, and when they were just about to give up, it turned out they’d accidentally picked up the exact person they were looking for.

_If Oxton hears about this…_

As soon as the landing props touched the ground and she turned the repulsors off, the medics were already pushing the hover-stretcher towards the ramp. To their greatest surprise, the “patient” stepped out the door, still a bit clumsy, but already on her feet. Though her IV bag was carried by Reyes, since before landing she had been trying to do so in vain, fine movements had turned out to be still a problem for her.

The pilot gave a last glance to the slowly ascending team, wishing them good luck in her thoughts, then she turned back to the control panel to finish the steps of the landing protocol.

She better hurried. She had a feeling, when it would came to debriefings, her turn would soon come.

***

Though her sense of balance got better with every passing minute, Moira did not object when the nurses asked her to at least sit on the stretcher. She still couldn’t understand what she was doing there, so she decided to go with the strategy of silent observation.

As they passed through a numberless amount of long corridors, she felt the gaze of people on her like the touch of thousands of impolite fingers. The temptation to reciprocate the glances was strong, but she managed to overcome it. She didn’t want to draw more attention than necessary.

After all she had been through in the las month, she found it slightly ironic to end up here. Here, in the heart of the very organization that had been one of the firsts to publicly condemn her for her work and achievements.  Reyes had told her she would be taken here for interrogation, but she had been underestimated as a simple academic enough times for her to learn to recognize a lie. Even though the man had looked genuinely surprised when she had introduced herself, there was still a feeling lurking inside her that this wasn’t a simple coincidence.

After seemingly endless, identical corridors painted in light colours, they reached their destination. The room behind the door opening with a hissing sound looked like an inpatient exam room; a bed covered with sterile sheets, a glass-door cabinet for the tools, a desk in the corner, probably for the assistant, who at the moment was somewhere else.

Only one person was standing next to the bed, with her back to the door, fumbling with something on the desk. Mid-height woman, by her posture and body structure she seemed to be in her twenties. Her light blonde hair had probably been tied to a neat ponytail in the morning, but since then many locks had broken free to point to various directions.

“Ah” the doctor looked up, or at least from her medical gown that was what Moira guessed she was. “Go ahead and put her down, I’ll be finished in a moment.”

Although it was only a simple exam room, it was still the best equipped medical unit she had seen in the past month, and the scent of disinfectants woke up the unfamiliar feeling of homesickness in her.

“Forgive me for making you wait” the doctor apologised, as she put down what had just been in her hands and turned around. “I…”

Her face mirrored the same surprise Moira felt.

“You are…” the younger woman stammered, brushing a stray strand of hair behind her ears. “And I thought they misspelled your name in the report.”

“Dr. Ziegler” Moira nodded, studying the emotions battling on the face of the other woman with interest. She somewhat looked like a child who got the desired gift for Christmas, only the toy train turned out to be 150 tons, heading towards her at the speed of 100 km/h in a tunnel.

Ziegler eyed the right hand stretched towards her, as if not understanding what to do with it. Her eyes went wide when her brain managed to process the scars cutting through the pale skin.

Oh well. The portraits of scientific journals rarely showed hands.

Moira looked at her expectantly, until the blonde doctor realized what was expected from her, and gave her hand a short squeeze. Her posture was still too rigid, but it seemed like at least she managed to overcome the initial shock.

“Can you tell me what happened to you?” Ziegler asked, switching back to the impersonal composure of routine questions, lifting a tablet from the desk with tools.

“I cannot give you much more than what is stated in the reports.” Moira motioned towards the device with her head. “In the majority of time I wasn’t conscious.”

“Yes, I see that” the Swiss doctor hemmed, then her gaze slid to the left arm of her patient and the thin tube connected to it, and shivered. “Who inserted that?”

“Reyes.”

Ziegler sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose with closed eyes for a moment.

“What was I expecting? That man doesn’t even show up for the annual screening, so let’s not mention the training… Seriously, I shouldn’t let him.” She shook her head, placing the tablet back on the table. “But I’ll still need some blood for the upcoming tests. May I…?”

Moira offered her her left arm.

“I would recommend this one. Unless you wish to spend one and half an hour with searching for a vein.”

The doctor removed the carelessly inserted venous catheter with a proficient move, replacing it with a fresh one. The crimson liquid slowly filled the vials, while the two women stared in front of themselves in silence.

“I’ve read your study.” Ziegler tried to hit a conversational tone. “Impressive.”

The Irish scientist laughed dryly.

“Yes, I am aware of that. You let the word know your opinion quite loudly. Which, may I add, was not nearly this flattering.”

The blonde doctor closed the valve and fastened the cannula with wide tapes to the skin of her patient. During all this she avoided eye contact.

“Firstly, I had to interpret the official standpoint of Overwatch.” Her voice almost sounded defensive. “Secondly, I myself share that opinion. What you have created is compelling, but dangerous at the same time. Have you considered what would happen if this technology ended up in the wrong hands?”

Moira looked the other woman up and down slowly and coolly. This wasn’t the first time she had to face these accusations.

“Dr. Ziegler, you should be the one to know best that there are risks we have to take for progress.” With her free right hand she motioned around the exam room. “Your field of expertise is bionics, am I right? I too have read _your_ study.” she added with a dry smile.

Ziegler nodded, with suspicion in her eyes, as if she already suspected where the other one tried to end up.

“During your work, hasn’t it ever occurred to you how easy your accomplishments could be turned into weapons?”

The face of the Swiss doctor slowly faded into a dark shade of red, creating a sharp contrast with her light hair. Moira held back a smirk. She managed to touch a sore spot.

“Why do you think Overwatch employs you? Yes, your eyes look well on the posters, but let’s not fall into delusions!”

“We are done here.” Ziegler’s voice was suddenly very sharp and rigid, as she placed the vials filled with blood on a stand. “The results will probably given to you by noon. Until then you will be transferred to a patient room, and I don’t suggest you try to stand up in twenty-four hours.” And with that she picked up her tablet and the vials, marching out the door with a fluttering gown.

Moira gazed after her with eyebrows slightly raised.

_It could have gone worse._

***

Reyes felt it had taken an eternity to get done with all the paperwork and have Jack completely satisfied with his report. As he had expected, his friend wasn’t particularly happy to hear about their little field trip of sudden impulse or their guest, and this didn’t change when Gabriel told him he was going to offer a job to the woman.

He wasn’t happy about it, but he didn’t forbid it either, which he could have done. Even though Morrison wasn’t his superior officially when it came to decisions like this, he still held a position strong enough that had he not wanted someone in the organisation, that person wouldn’t have the chance to get hired.

He had to admit anyway that Dr. O’Deorain could be of profit for the organisation, and as long as they employ her, at least it’s not somebody else who has her knowledge. This, looking back at their skirmish with Talon earlier that day, didn’t seem that irrational of a threat anymore.

So even though Jack had given his blessings – silence this time meant permission -, talking to the person concerned still had to be done.

He found Angela in the shared kitchen of the officer’s quarters, which they usually used when the mess hall was closed or when they wanted to eat in silence, far from the crowd. Probably it was both this time, judging from the late hour and the way the young woman cradled her trademark coffee mug. She looked rather upset.

“What’s up, doc?” he sat down next to her with a cup of tea. He wanted to be the first next morning to talk to their patient, so he had to  refrain from anything that could keep him awake for a long time. “How is the patient doing?”

Dr. Ziegler’s face went dark to the mentioning of the scientist, but she didn’t look up from her coffee.

“Why did you bring her here, Gabriel?” she asked silently, her voice betraying no emotion.

Reyes shrugged. He didn’t know why this whole situation affected their head of medicine this way, but he decided for now he would approach the subject carefully.

“This is protocol. Injured civilians that are potential witnesses have to be taken to base for medical attendance and interrogation.”

Angela stared at him with the look of people who know very well they are taken for a ride and they don’t like it at all.

“Protocol is to take them to the _nearest_ centre. Which in this case means Dublin base. Or London, in a worst-case scenario. So I ask you this question again: _why_ did you bring her here?”

Gabriel sighed, surrendering, and took a sip from his tea.

“I want to give her a job offer” he admitted at last, eyes fixed at the bottom of his mug.

“Gabe…”

He finally looked up, straight into Dr. Ziegler’s eyes.

“Doc, when we found her, a bunch of Talon soldiers were trying to bundle her into a van. I know you don’t necessarily agree with her methods, but you have to admit she is a competent professional and a perfect fit for Blackwatch. So you should ask _yourself_ this instead: do you want more to work with her or against her?”

With that he stood up, and left the doctor alone with her mug. It was better he finished that cup of tea alone, before questions he didn’t want to answer in that moment arose.

Angela was a smart woman, she would probably realise why Dr. O’Deorain was there very soon. He just hoped he wouldn’t be there when it happens.

***

Moira woke up with a splitting headache, which she didn’t find surprising looking back on the previous day, even though she hadn’t experienced these symptoms before going to sleep. Probably now was the time by when her system had cleared itself from the medications pumped into her veins. This was a common side effect and it could have been much worse.

It was still not a pleasant feeling.

Whoever arranged the sick-room had enough humanity in them to turn the lights to minimum. Only a nightlight had been left on to give her enough light not to fall over, had she got the urge to wander. She had no intention to. For now she would have been content if the room had stopped moving uncoordinatedly around her.

She closed her eyes, wishing that would help, but then she heard an unfamiliar growl which made her wide awake again. As if someone was trying to let the world know their dissatisfaction.

Disregarding her stiff neck she turned her head and laid her eyes on the source of the sound: not far from her bed there was a figure sitting on the stool that belonged to the room. With his dark clothes and the way he sat there, motionless, hooking his legs into the stretcher of the piece of furniture, it would probably have taken much more time for her to acknowledge his presence. As if he was a mere shadow.

“Good morning” he greeted her when he noticed she regained her consciousness. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to wake you up.”

Moira squinted – she had lost one of her contact lenses the las night, the other had been removed by the nurse on duty before leaving her alone -, and as her visitor pulled his chair closer, she managed to make out his face. The older agent who had inserted the IV needle in such a scandalously poor way.

“Reyes. What are you doing here?”

The commander scratched his neck, looking disconcerted.

“I just wanted to check if they were treating you well. How are you feeling?”

She gave a dry laugh, then she stopped, because it only made her headache worse.

“Like someone who has been hit by something big and heavy” she admitted with a grimace. “Isn’t there a bottle of water on that table by any chance?”

Reyes looked back over his shoulder, then lifted an object that looked like a jug from the drawer also functioning as a table, and filled the glass next to it.

“Angela… Dr. Ziegler isn’t particularly happy about your presence” he handed her the glass of liquid.

The corner of he mouth twitched. Either the man was using a strong euphemism, or he didn’t really assess the situation correctly.

The touch of cool water felt like redemption for her dry throat and by the time she noticed, the glass was empty in her hand.

“Minor professional disagreements” she shrugged as the man took the now empty container from her.

Reyes gave a dark laugh, as if he understood the exaggeration quite well.

“But this exact same vocation is what saves you from being dragged from interrogation to environmental simulation and back. As long as she doesn’t decide otherwise, you are Angela’s patient, and nobody dares to contradict her on matters like this.”

Moira raised an eyebrow. She was more interested in the first half of the sentence.

“Why, what have I done?”

“Nothing, at least nothing we know of.” The man was visibly amused by her reaction. “But you count as a valuable witness, and Overwatch is pretty interested in your assaulters.” He shrugged, holding his hands out, as if apologising in advance for the inconveniences of the future. “But until then you are left to Angela’s mercy.”

“It doesn’t matter, I wasn’t planning to stay long anyway. I will probably be able to endure it for that time” she replied. There was something in Reyes’ posture, the way he suddenly became more tense, that drew her attention. Whatever was to follow, it was going to be interesting.

“I hope you’re not planning to go back to Dublin” the commander took up that conversational tone that sounded exactly as natural as a hip prostheses. The scientist decided to play along; she was curious where it would lead.

“Why would I not?”

“For example because they drugged you and tried to kidnap you yesterday?”

Moira shrugged with a neutral expression.

“It isn’t as uncommon as you would think around there.”

Judging by his overall body language, Reyes felt less and less comfortable. Very good, this was she would sooner or later get what she wanted to know.

“I see you don’t get it. This attack was not a random raid. The Dublin forces investigated the scene and it looked very much like a trap built and set personally for you. That gas station’s been out of use since the war.”

Watching her face intently, the man was probably waiting for some kind of reaction that could give him directions regarding the further course of their conversation. Even though Ziegler had forbidden any interrogations, the scientist had no illusions about what she was currently taking part in.

It didn’t take her much effort to mask her surprise; on the one hand this was one of the first few things she had learned from her profession, on the other hand she had figured this much out on her own.

“I have a sister living near London. She would probably let me stay with her until I figure out what I would do next.”

Reyes obviously didn’t like the answer, and she could almost distinctly recognise the moment he finally broke and decided to get straight to the matters.

“Or… you could stay here.”

“Here?” the doctor tilted her head to the side, and this time she didn’t have to feign her shock. Why in hell would she stay there?

The commander sighed, weary. All in all he looked rather worn-out, he probably had planned this conversation to be much shorter, without considering the resistance of the other person.

“Look, doc, your talents are globally unmatched, and probably it wasn’t just us who noticed this. Yesterday was just the beginning. But among us you can make use of your expertise, and our organisation would protect you.”

Moira’s face went dark. She hated it deeply when somebody took her for a fool.

“You have to be kidding me. Last month Overwatch released an official resolution in which it clearly condemned my research. Don’t try to tell me their opinion has changed!”

For her greatest surprise Reyes nodded.

“Right, Overwatch is not what it has been during the crisis. War makes people endure things they normally don’t have the stomach for. That’s exactly why they are only a façade now, doing the peacekeeping, negotiation and stuff. And taking credit for the successes, of course.” Was she hearing a hint of bitterness in his voice? The doctor, interested, lifted herself higher on her elbow. “This is exactly why, suppose you say yes, you’ll belong to a smaller, less known division. Almost like an organisation inside the organisation. We do the real work.”

Now this certainly sounded interesting. She still didn’t quite see how this would work – suborganisation or not, she would still be working for Overwatch -, but if somehow it was possible…

“I see you need me, I can understand that.” She banished all kinds of emotion from her voice. She knew if the commander caught her considering the idea to any degree, she would lose her remaining, already labile position of bargain. “What benefit would it mean to me, suppose I agree to work for you?”

Reyes laughed snorting, as if he found the question quite amusing.

“Don’t get me wrong, doc, but you don’t look like you thrive on job offers. It would be stupid to push away the only hand reaching for you.’

Moira delicately raised an eyebrow.

“Let us suppose I am indeed stupid.”

As the commander blew out the breath he was holding, it could be seen he was getting tired of the cat-and-mouse game.

“I can offer you what I can offer to any of my employees. Bed and board, including medical care, and besides the salary is not that bad either, if you need anything extra in addition to the previously mentioned.”

“What about my research expenses?”

“Naturally Overwatch fully finances the work you do for them.” Hearing the question, the tension in Reyes’ shoulders loosened a bit. “You just hand in a request, or if it’s something more… _delicate_ you tell me, and then just wait for the machinery to do the work. But since you would get the highest clearance, you could practically order anything that’s not a bunch of child labourers. If you know what I mean.”

She nodded, and her smile was honest the first time in this morning. For now she didn’t let unlimited relief wash over her, but she couldn’t banish the feeling that finally, after all that time, she had solid ground under her feet.

“You are right in that sense that I’m not overwhelmed by job offers” she admitted with a sour grimace. “So what is your opinion if I say let’s give it a try?”

A broad grin laid across Reyes’ face, showing all his teeth as he held out his right hand decidedly for her. To give him credit, his eyes only twitched slightly when his gaze slid to Moira’s scarred fingers tightening around his.

“Welcome on board, doc!”

***

Gabriel had thought the hardest part of his day would have been informing Jack, but as he let the door of the sick-room close behind him, he felt there was nothing left that his old friend could outbid the doctor with. Initially he did expect Dr. O’Deorain not to cooperate at once, but he didn’t think she would recognise this early that his offer had two sides.

Yet the scientist almost instantly sensed that Reyes needed her help exactly as much as she needed a place to give her work and safety. The commander had expected an easy win, and now, when he was left alone, he couldn’t hide the trembling of his hands. This symptom had gotten more and more frequent lately, but this time it was harder to control it than usual.

Dr. O’Deorain could have said no, and would have done it, hadn’t she perceive the offer tempting enough, and they both knew it. This woman would rather do menial labour in a onehorse town off the map than to bind herself to an organization that didn’t meet her requirements.

It was impossible for the doctor to already realize the real reason behind her employment, and that is how it had to be. The commander didn’t need her to know how much power she really had over him. It wouldn’t benefit their professional hierarchy.

Jack was sitting behind his desk, studying the holographic screens projected in front of him. Even from this angle, Reyes could make out that his attention was occupied by the reports of the Dublin unit and his team, which, for once, he was happy about. It would be easier to get to the point.

“Gabe” the younger man looked up with a bleak smile on his face, as he noticed his friend waiting at the door. “Come, take a seat!”

Morrison made the documents floating over the desk disappear with a wave of his hand, so he would be able to see the face of his friend directly.

“I heard you had a fruitful day off.” The tone of the strike commander didn’t lack irony as he laid back in his chair, with that familiar motion Gabriel had seen so many times. “ _Again._ ”

The leader of Blackwatch shrugged with his hands spread wide.

“A man has to know how to make the most out of his free time.”

Jack shook his head, but there was no real resentment in his laughter.

“If you continue like this, I will have to stint you of a few months of leave. In the end you’d gather all the ill-fated errant souls when I’m not looking.”

“You know me, Jack. I can have a hobby, right?”

Morrison’s face suddenly went dark. It seemed like he decided this was the time to turn the conversation more serious.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to connect Overwatch’s name with O’Deorain? If this gets out, it’s going to get a bigger response than we can handle while keeping our reputation clean.”

“That’s why I say the doc belongs to Blackwatch. If you remember, there was no problem with Jesse either, and he had much more red in his ledger even back then.”

Morrison couldn’t deny this. When Gabriel found him, the boy was under investigation by the authorities for multiple cases of murder and purposeful wrongdoing, and it took them years to clean his name more or less. Even though now he didn’t have to fear being arrested on the street, the question often arose in Overwatch whether or not he had a place among them.

Back then the commander had vowed not to let the kid be torn apart by the vultures of bureaucracy, and he intended to keep this promise in the case of the doctor too. His agents one by one were part of the mismatched, perplexingly colourful family that was officially called Blackwatch. When forming the division, one of Gabriel’s most important condition was to have the right to personally choose the ones that serve under him. He had seen with his own eyes what happens when people are placed in a team by the judging of those in power. A suborganisation that had to be more than a mere façade couldn’t afford the problems stemming from these decisions.

So Gabriel studied the profile of every and each applicant, and supervised their probation himself. As a result, Blackwatch’s numbers was dwarfed by the mother organisation, but at least the commander knew each of his employees and their capability. In exchange for the right of sole decision, Reyes took responsibility for everyone that passed his screening. If a single faulty gear had gotten into the machine, stopping it, only he would have borne the consequences.

But he made sure this wouldn’t happen.

Jack sighed, surrendering. He knew well enough that their decade-long agreement still stood, even when it came to somebody neither he, nor his company was happy to see among them.

“Just tell me one thing, Gabe! What makes you so eager to enrol this woman? What makes her so special that your team can’t function without her?”

For a moment, Reyes played with the thought of telling him right then and there. Maybe he could help him find a solution, after all, Morrison had always been the one who had attracted other soldiers of the Program like rotting meat attracted flies. He had held contact with many of them even after forming Overwatch, and he probably knew more of their fates than the public reports he managed to obtain with hard work.

But he had to see that no matter how much relief it would be to have the support of his friend, it would have caused more complications than he was willing to take the risk of.

So he simply shrugged and gave the same answer as every time he had been asked this question.

“I see potential in her.”

Jack, who had gotten used to his reasoning in the past ten years, bowed obligingly.

“Alright, have it your way. But I’d still like you to be careful with this woman. Angela doesn’t trust her.”

Gabriel raised his eyebrows with a slight smile – sometimes it was amusing how much Dr. Ziegler, despite her young age, acted like she had been their mother personally. Thinking it over, probably she had taken it after Ana.

“Let the docs compare their scientific dicks!” he grinned at his old friend. “That’s how they set up their inner little hierarchy.”

“Somehow they never had this problem with Ana” Morrison twisted his mouth.

“Ana practically kidnapped her, and told her to join our scholarship program, doesn’t matter if she wanted or not” Reyes reminded him. “Their relationship is a little different.”

Jack made a waving motion with his hand, but couldn’t suppress his smile.

“Alright, alright, that’s true. Regardless, O’Deorain has to be interrogated. If Talon tried to rope her in, it could tell us more about the direction they are planning to expand themselves.”

Gabriel nodded; of course he had already thought of this.

“Just leave it to me! I know who the best person is for that job.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for still being here! Feel free to point out any mistakes I made. I'm also always happy to read any kind of comments.


	10. Chapter 5 Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An interrogation, a debate on names and the fact that Gabe sucks in pronouncing them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I'm alive! This is the first half of Chapter 5, this was the only reasonable place I could cut it in half.  
> Also, this is a shout-out to the folks who are still here and the ones who helped me with the pronunciation of Moira's last name. Y'all rock!

Moira spent another whole day in the sickroom where, apart from the nurse on call, only Reyes showed up time to time, to check how she was getting on.

As for her, she still couldn’t quite figure out the reason behind his sudden determination to make her part of his team. Naturally she knew how much value her knowledge held, given that one was willing to accept the risks, but it still didn’t justify the… _need_ which she had seen in the eyes of the commander – from now on, her commander.

No, this man had something in mind, something he had yet to deign to share with her. No problem. If the matter was as urgent as it seemed to be by his behaviour, the scientist suspected she wouldn’t have to wait long for the confrontation.

The “conference room” where she was led by no means could be called overly decorated. The whole furniture consisted of one table with a chair on both sides, and the walls were covered by monitors, currently inactive. In front of the table, she noticed a wall-segment that looked like a glass sheet, in which she could see herself reflected perfectly, yet she had participated in enough experiments of behavioural analysis to know, every single one of her movements could be observed from the ones outside.

She sat motionless on the chair more comfortable than she had previously expected, lacing her fingers together in front of her, on the cool metal surface of the table, and she stared into the eyes of her reflection. The result of these experiments could only be taken into consideration if the subject didn’t know they were participating in it, this the ones outside still had to learn.

It didn’t take long, the only door of the room opened, and a man stepped inside. He seemed taller than average, but Moira suspected, had she stood up, she would have still towered over him by at least a span. The stranger’s appearance emitted a sense of elegant professionalism, with his suit, neatly combed, black hair and moustache, which made a sharp contrast to Reyes’ worn-out hoodies and loose posture.

She politely rose to her feet to hold out a hand, acknowledging the moment of shock of the other person with slight satisfaction, as she straightened herself to her full height. Her bodily structure often caused her problems in her daily life, but undeniably it had advantages.

“I am Gérard Lacroix, welcome here” he squeezed her hand, holding eye contact through the procedure. If he noticed the scars cutting through her skin, he didn’t show a sign of it. His accent clearly let her know that English wasn’t his native tongue, though, probably as a product of long years of work, hadn’t it been the first time she heard him speak, the difference would have been barely noticeable. “Please take a seat!”

Lacroix settled down on the chair across her, almost unnoticeably turning it, enough to still face her, but already lightening the rigid formality of the situation.

She had to give that one to him, the man knew what he was doing. His open, friendly, but at the same time determined gestures probably usually eased the tension of the interrogated person, which was a useful effect if he wanted to gather information.

He started with the usual routine questions, name, previous life, qualifications. Moira didn’t quite understand why these circles had to be run again, since the organization probably already had this data. She couldn’t banish the feeling that so far this whole thing was suspiciously similar to a job interview.

Actually, after her conversation with Reyes, this didn’t seem to be that much of an unlikely option.

After this, Lacroix asked her to talk about the evening of the attack with the most accuracy she is capable of, especially anything strange, suspicious or incongruous. This wasn’t too hard, since, thinking back, the whole situation stank. The too clean, exhibition-like shop in the middle of a run-down, fallen-apart gas station, the fact that _accidentally_ it was a former medical student who led the interview…

As she spoke, the man time to time scribbled something on the tablet in front of him, which seemed to be the same model as Ziegler’s. It was probably a service device.

“Thank you” Lacroix nodded, when she reached the end of the story, and almost nonchalantly reached into his pocket, and pulled out something that at first glance looked like a badge in an air-tight bag. “Does this say anything to you?”

Moira leaned closer, frowning, and smoothened the wrapping with her fingers to see the small object better.

The silver-lined, shield-shaped, slightly domed metal plate would have disappeared in the palms of someone with a hand much smaller than her, it probably was intended to be pinned to an ID case. It was similar to one she with her lecturer ID card, only instead of the logo of the Dublin University this held a symbol that mimicked a T, engraved and varnished bright crimson on the surface. If she looked closer, it could have been a dagger without a handle.

“It looks like a badge for and ID case” the doctor looked up to the man studying her. “I don’t recognize the logo of the organization.”

“That’s because this is not the logo of an organization” Lacroix gave a short nod, and after a few touches on his tablet, the monitors on the walls came to life.

Moira watched with interest as the screens filled with a montage of pictures and videos, slightly turning back in her seat. Most of the recordings probably were from traffic cameras or portable devices, because their quality left much to be desired. Portraits of men, women and omnics, from clear, posed ones to sketchy identikits, pasted next to videos of different events. Robberies, assassinations, business deals, most of which looked very strongly, even through the very pixelated display.

“This group gained our attention in the last few years, but their work probably goes back much longer” Lacroix said behind her in a silent, but clear tone. “Madam, have you ever heard of Talon?”

She tried to connect memories to the name with all of her diligence, but wasn’t successful.

“I can’t recall.”

“As a short summary” the man motioned across the monitors “Talon is one of the biggest and best organized international terrorist groups we have knowledge of. Their exact goal is not certain yet, but as you can see, their interests vary on a great range. Do you recognize any of these people?”

Moira studied the pictures, deep in thought.

“I doubt I’ve seen any of them before. I talked to a woman who called herself Charlotte, but I don’t think she is high-ranked. She didn’t show much potential or ambition, but maybe she has high manipulative skills.”

Lacroix industriously kept on taking notes, his fingers moving on the screen of the tablet with unfollowable speed.

“If you don’t mind, I’ll set you up on a date with one of our composite artists. It’s possible you can give them new details.” He looked up, honest interest in his eyes. “Do you have any idea what their intention was with you?”

The scientist returned his gaze with a dry, cynical smile.

“I can’t say for sure, since I never received an official request from them, but as we can exclude my simply being murdered as a goal, which I never gave a reason to anyway… think a bit! Why do _you_ need me?”

The man gave a short nod, indicating he understood her trail of thought. After a few more, summarizing questions he rose from his seat, and offered to shake hands as a goodbye.

“Thank you for your cooperation! If I’m right, Commander Reyes is waiting for you outside” he motioned towards the reflective window with his head. “I’m sure he is going to give you all the information you are going to need for now.”

***

Days went by, they slowly turned into weeks, and Gabriel was still playing for time for when he finally would have to talk to the doctor about his personal request. For his excuse, since the arrival of the woman neither of them had gotten a lot of free time. O’Deorain had been almost fully occupied by the arrangements, and every time he looked for her, he found her in the unfinished but more equipped by the hour laboratory. He gradually started to doubt that she was willing to waste time on human fallibilities like sleep – the paper coffee cups gathering in the waste bin in the corner only seemed to confirm it.

They had chosen a section of one of the basement floors for her working area, not far from the Department of Research and Development. It consisted of a couple of rooms opening into each other, with a larger central laboratory, the equipment of which seemed to be the top priority for the scientist.

When after fast identification with the retinal scanner the door slid aside with a hissing sound, and Reyes stepped over the threshold, he found his newest subordinate sitting on the floor. In front of her were the parts of a computer, on a makeshift table built from cardboard boxes – probably its own wrapping - , and she was seemingly fully submerged in studying the screen.

“Commander Reyes” she greeted him without looking up from what she was reading. So they didn’t take up as much of her attention as Gabriel expected.

“Hey, doc!” He looked for a chair to sit on, but he had to realize that every stable, horizontal surface in the room was occupied by devices in various stages of unwrapping. This explained her solution of a table, and also told him a lot about her priorities.

In the end he also opted for the floor, since it was where he found enough free space for himself to settle down without causing any significand damage. Since this was going to be a longer conversation, he found it better to do it this way. Recently his stamina had gotten worse, which concerned him more and more.

“How is furnishing going?” he inquired, situating himself in a polite distance from the woman, glancing at the screen cautiously. It looked like she had a tab of the central database’s client software open. Blackwatch’s newest member probably had been browsing through the information provided for her, very good.

“I’m still waiting for a couple of machines, but apart from that I’m progressing as fast as it is possible” O’Deorain answered, taking a sip from the cup next to her. “What brings you here?”

Gabriel gave a shrug that was meant to be neutral.

“I just wanted to check if everything went smoothly down here. There hasn’t been any problems, I hope?”

The woman gave a silent little laugh, on the same, surprisingly low voice she used for talking.

“Your people are too afraid of me to try anything, if you were afraid of that.’

The Commander wasn’t worried about his own employees primarily, but it was reassuring nonetheless to know his newest recruit hadn’t been subject to any atrocities yet.

For a few minutes, silence settled in between them,  but it seemed like the doctor didn’t mind it at all, since she continued browsing the database undisturbed.

Reyes knew he had to lead up the topic somehow, and it didn’t help relaxing the nervous knot around his stomach. He had never been good in big announcements.

He took a deep breath, and waited until he was sure his voice wouldn’t betray him.

“Dr. O’Deorain…” he started, but the woman silenced him with a wave of her hand.

“Moira.” When she saw confusion spreading on the Commander’s face, the scientist added with annoyance on her face: “You can call me Moira!”

“Oh.” He had been expecting many things, but not this. “Well… you can call also call me Gabriel, if you want to.”

The cool expression of the doctor would probably have made frostwork appear on the windows, had the room have such openings.

“I did not offer this to be polite.” Her voice radiated exactly as much warmth as her gaze. “It’s simply that your pronunciation is horrible, and I suspected you could at least manage my first name.”

“Oh.” It seemed like the Commander’s vocabulary suddenly had narrowed down to that one word, since he was unable to mutter anything else. He felt blood rush into his face in shame.

_Congratulations, Gabe, that’s how you establish respect with your subordinates!”_

Moira watched his suffering with stoic calmness for an infinitely long-feeling time, then, to his greatest surprise, a pale but seemingly honest smile appeared on her lips.

“Nevertheless, thank you, I accept your offer… Gabriel.”

Silence. Awkward, deaf, unbreakable silence. This little interlude broke his already unstable momentum, and now he suddenly didn’t know how to bring the subject up again. Over the years he gained many strengths, one of them was the ability to see the weaknesses he knew would never completely disappear.

Being unable to ask for or accept help was one of the worst among these traits.

Moira’s expectant gaze did not help at all.

“You wanted to say something before we started debating names, didn’t you?” she raised an eyebrow, after she probably realized Reyes would not bring the matter up again on his own.

The Commander nodded stiffly, and cleared his throat to at least get some of his voice back.

“Actually it would be kind of a long chat.” He gave a careful glance to the security camera positioned in one corner of the ceiling. “It might be a conversation we don’t want to have in here.”

Moira nodded earnestly, and locked her computer with a couple of motions.

“Alright, what do you think about taking a walk? It has been a long time since I’ve been in Zürich, and incidentally I too have a few questions to you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for staying with me. Any commentary makes me extremely happy, so feel free to leave something here. See you next chapter!


	11. Chapter 5 Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an agreement is made. Finally. You only had to wait about 50 pages for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! I'll try to get out at least a couple of parts before July, since I'm planning to do Nano this summer again, and if I'm busy writing 1500 words a day, I probably won't have time to translate anything.  
> I'm not sure how this year's CampNano's gonna go though, since I'm supposed to get a full time job by then. We'll see!  
> By the way, slowly but surely my buffer chapters are growing, I'm almost finished with a Christmas party scene that's totally useless, but I just had to write one. It's going to be Chapter 9, if I'm right. Maybe you'll get it for this Christmas, lol.

The Overwatch Headquarters had been built by the northern perimeters of the Swiss city, right after the treaty ending the Omnic Crisis, almost fifteen years before. It was located close enough to the main road to be approachable if needed, but the two lakes and minor patches of wood surrounding it separated it enough from the buzz of public life not to threaten its undisturbed operation.

Moira looked up to the, with pedestal, almost fifteen meters tall statue that towered over the main entrance. As far as she could assess from this angle, it depicted a man raising his right hand to a casual salute, while leaning on a huge machine gun with the other.

Reyes beside her followed her gaze to the marble giant, and let out a peculiar kind of throaty laughter.

“Well yeah, Jack’s always known how to draw attention to himself.”

She gave him a faint smile, looking over the elaborately sculpted soldier once again. Since her arrival, she had met Morrison a couple of times in passing, and by her experiences so far, she could confirm that statement. The Strike Commander owned that kind of charismatic aura that let him evoke admiration and trust from anyone who laid an eye on him. Herself, as usual, she regarded as an exception to this rule, but even she had to admit that there couldn’t be a better person for his position.

“It bears witness of immense modesty and humbleness.” Though her remark did not lack dry sarcasm, the amusement seeping from her voice didn’t miss the attention of the leader of Blackwatch.

“This was, exceptionally, Petras’ idea, not his” Gabriel gestured towards the statue with his head. – And believe me, he’s had it in the first few months. Actually sometimes it’s still good to pick on him about it.

“There are pleasantries that don’t fade easily” the scientist agreed, though as for herself, people had never complimented her for her sense of humour, when they would even do such a thing. In her opinion, there were levels of humour that only the worthy could understand, something the uncomprehending masses were not to be condemned for.

People in uniforms and civilian attire passed them by as they got further away from the base. Reyes greeted some of them, quickly shook hands with others. It seemed as if everyone knew him around here, which – by his public profile that she found among the database records made available for her in the past few hours – did not surprise her at all. Eventually he had been the commander of the original Overwatch Strike Team back in the day. After Morrison, he still was one of the highest ranking officers of the organisation.

The October wind caught in her hair, and she made a mental note that it was time to have it shortened again.  Now that she left her headwear in Dublin, she felt the difference much more distinctively. She dig her left hand in the fiery locks, trying to smooth them back in place, with more or less success.

The motion did not miss Gabriel’s attention either.

“I didn’t forget we still owe you a cap” he nodded at her, as they turned from the wide, white concrete pavement to a much more narrow, gravel path lined with trees. In the distance she almost saw the glint of a lake’s surface.

“I’ll remind you of that.” The edge of Moira’s mouth slightly twitched upwards. Though the commander didn’t lack the faint, careful fear that usually surrounded people when they got near her, there were still some differences that made her feel much more comfortable around him than anyone else in her newly found organization. It didn’t mean she liked the man too much, only that she was relieved not to be met with the same kind of distrust and suspicion she had to face lately.

Soon they reached the path running by the lake, and the noise of the base slowly died down behind them. The scientist looked down on the man.

“You wanted to talk to me about something.”

Reyes’ face clouded over, his gaze trained on the pebbles of the trail. It seemed like he was carefully turning the words over in his head before speaking.

“I could say I have a project for you, your first official assignment…” He shook his head. “But the truth is, it’s not official in any way, most of all, I’m here to ask for your help.”

Moira curiously tipped he head sideways, trying to decipher as much as she could from the swirl of emotions under his features.

_Here we go._

Ever since her arrival, she had been waiting for the commander to bring this forth during one of their meetings, the real reason he brought here instead of sending her to the Irish outpost to handle the problem locally. For multiple occasions it seemed like he was going to break, but he backed down every time, as if he had been afraid of her reaction.

After all, her patience bore fruit.

“I’m listening” she encouraged her walking partner, when she realized he was trying to back out again.

Reyes sighed and set his knitted hat straight, which probably used to be black, but years of use made if fade to a darkish gray.

“How much do you know about the Soldier Enhancement Program of the USA?”

So the threads finally met. This was the first thing she wanted to ask the Commander, more precisely the question of what the public files of the Program were doing on her ministerial computer, when during her admittance she had clearly been told that she could find all the necessary information in the central Database.

Where there were not a single word about the Program.

“I’ve run through the documents I can probably thank to you. Otherwise I have only heard about it being mentioned superficially.”

The man nodded approvingly.

“You see, _this_ is why we need you here in Blackwatch. Among other things. It’s hard to find people with independent thinking skills.”

 Moira showed him her agreement with a wry smile.

“You’re telling me?”

“Based on your current information, what’s your opinion” Reyes asked, folding his fingers behind his back.

“Professional of personal?”

“In this order.”

Moira inhaled deeply as she tried to sort her thoughts.

“Based on my current knowledge, as a member of the profession, I see multiple faults.” It didn’t miss her attention how Reyes’ eyes flashed hearing the word ‘fault’. “Harmless faults and ones that mean serious hazard alike. Some of them can be accounted for, as genetic engineering was very much in its infancy twenty years ago, it has been the first bigger attempt since the Second World War. Of course some of them were human mistakes, but those are the minority. By all account, should I start a similar program today, I would do many things differently.”

The commander nodded mechanically, the scar-slashed skin of his face paling to an unhealthy grey.

“What about your personal opinion?”

The doctor’s smile was fully honest this time.

“Personally I have to pay my admiration to the progressive scientists who dared to step over the conventions of their age, and start something that would move genetic science forward this much.” With her torso she turned towards Reyes, who didn’t seem quite happy. “But I assume you’re not interested in it for the historical magnitude.

Gabriel shook his head with a laboured sigh, and sank his clenched fists into the kangaroo pockets of his hoodie, but he couldn’t hide the trembling of his hands from her.

“No, I’m really not.” His voice, though it kept its usual determination, lost at least as much colour as his face. He slowly filled his lungs with air, then started talking: “The Program was launched not much before the breakout of the Crisis. We don’t know if it was accidental or they already suspected the tension would go as far as it did, but looking back it’s all pretty suspicious. It started as a secret project, still somehow everybody knew that the Army was working on an elite program, and our superiors soon contacted us about it. First they offered a chance to the soldiers who showed outstanding performance, but they still did some tests on us who took it. In the end there was about a hundred of us left to be accepted, and they sorted us into groups of about twenty, by rank and back-stair influence, with a couple of months of delay. I was in the second group.

“Soldier 24” Moira nodded, remembering one of the files that mysteriously appeared on her computer.

“Yeah, that would be me. Sometimes it crosses my mind that had I been a tad higher on the ladder, I probably wouldn’t be here now.” Reyes shivered. “The Program was made up of several different parts, but you probably already know this. Part of it was the Army’s usual field practice and physical training, except we were surrounded by medics. First they just sized us up, then the modifications slowly began. Back then they told us it was a special genetic program developed only for us, to boost our strength, stamina, reflexes… and it was mostly true, they only forgot to mention that it was pretty much still in test phase. Theoretically it should have worked, but they didn’t reckon with countless small factors, that partly stemmed from out individual differences. Practically it was all a big experiment.”

She listened to him, her head cocked aside with interest. Both the case files and the rumours going around among scientists remained silent about these small details. Of course she should have suspected this, since even her superficial studying revealed some pitfalls, still…

She gestured for Reyes to continue.

“At first it all seemed to be going alright. In the first phase the groups were separated, and looking back it made sense, since we all got different versions of the ‘formula’, as they called it. Of course we didn’t know it then and there. They stabilized the whole thing with spinal and cranial implants, and that’s where the problems began. Some soldiers reacted badly to the implantation or the serum or both, anyways, some dropped out in the first year. Official explanation was that they failed some tests and were found unfit for further enhancement. After all of it was done, some of their relatives told me that even if there were some who actually went home with paralysis or some other neurological damage, most of them were never seen again. It happened to at most tenth of my group, and by the time the last squad had been processed, it decreased even more, but rumour said there were units with almost no survivors. At least when the first phase was over and some months of practical training started, squads had to be merged and re-sorted.”

“I suppose nobody suspected anything then and there” the doctor took the chance.

The Commander only shook his head in response.

“No, we were too busy with all the training and the fact that we were going to be the first building block of future’s elite units, or something like that they fed us. Sure thing there was whispering about anomalies, but nobody could come up with a personal story, so we didn’t really pay attention to them. Most of the things turned out afterwards.”

“And how do you come to the picture, apart from the fact that you took part in the program?”

Reyes’ Adam’s apple moved visibly as he swallowed.

“The first symptoms started to show not much after the crisis, but I didn’t really care right then. I thought I was just exhausted, but years went by and it just got worse.”

Moira raised her eyebrows questioningly.

“That isn’t very specific, Commander.”

“We don’t really know what’s wrong” he shrugged. “Angela, with no other options, diagnosed some kind of rare systemic autoimmune disease, and I take medications for that, but they only blunt the symptoms, and lately they don’t even do that very much. It’s kinda like my body was slowly destroying itself.”

The doctor nodded slowly, though she wasn’t really any nearer to the problem, at least she obtained a couple of clues to start with. She didn’t know what she expected when she started being suspicious about Reyes’ background motives, but this fit in the picture perfectly.

“So you want me to help you.” Her tone purposefully didn’t leave a trace of doubt that the sentence wasn’t intended to be a question. “That is the real reason I’m here.”

“You’re a perfect fit for my team, that’s no lie either.” There was a strange kind of unease radiating from the man’s posture. “But indeed, seems like you’re the only one who can do anything about the matter.”

“When have I given you reason to trust me like that? I don’t think the general opinion of the public had encouraged you much.”

“Look… Moira. I’ve never met a professional more competent than Dr. Ziegler, and as you’ve already seen, even she’s afraid of you.”

Moira couldn’t help but smiled.  Indeed, this small detail hadn’t been overlooked by her either.

“Are you aware of what they are accusing me of?”

Reyes waved his hand impatiently, as if trying to shoo the question away.

“I don’t really care whether the jet set has the stomach for your work or not, and even less that some say you like to play god.”

“Not even the fact nobody managed to reproduce my results? Including your doctor?”

She wasn’t asking these questions for her own sake at all. If there was a single person in the universe who believed in her, then it was she herself, and approximately ever since the mentioning of the Soldier Enhancement Program, she knew for sure that she was going to accept the man’s offer. Never had she thought she’d meet a subject – because despite all the fancy names, it was hard to deny that that was exactly what he was – of a series of experiments this old. They usually didn’t have a lifespan too long. The subjects of similar programs in the majority of cases became similar to obsolete household appliances that were connected to an unfit power network, or upgraded with components too powerful. For a while they worked with outstanding performance, but after a while they burned out, went to the devil. During the war it hadn’t been an incommodious factor, as soldiers were offered the exact same career path. They would fight, win and die. But that war had ended almost fifteen years before, so not the least had she expected to ever meet one of the subjects.

To put it lightly, it was an excellent research opportunity, moreover it fit perfectly with her stranded publication’s theme.

“I think you know best that if we don’t try at all, I don’t have a year to go.” Reyes’ jaw tensed. “If I have to go anyway, it’s all the same if I go out being your lab bunny or I let myself slowly rot away from the inside out. At least I get a minimal chance to not do any of those.”

For the sake of effect Moira pretended to contemplate her choices, watching with slight satisfaction, as more and more tension built up in the man’s posture. Alright, very good. If she can maintain a healthy level of respectful fear in him, not reaching actual panic, it could be to her benefit. Work goes more smoothly if the subject bears it silently.

At last she nodded.

“Alright. I am willing to take a chance, but in case of complications, all responsibility lies on you.”

Reyes drew his lips to a dry, unhappy smile.

“You haven’t been here long enough to see this, but you’ll realize that _always_ and for _anything_ the responsibility is mine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I was technically half asleep while translating this, so mind my mistakes and please tell me anything that pops into your head while reading it.  
> Love you all!


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